software-center crashed with DatabaseCorruptError in __init__() (when the xapian db is corrupted)

For lucid it should rebuild the database automatically in this case - that requires adding more dbus to the db backend.

We have the dbus xapian service now, so that should be straightforward to add.

Steps to reproduce:

bzr get lp:software-center
cd software-center
echo -n '' > data/xapian/iamflint
./software-center

The following bracktrace shows up:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/zyga/Source/s-c/software-center/softwarecenter/app.py", line 120, in __init__
    self.db.open()
  File "/home/zyga/Source/s-c/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 59, in open
    self.xapiandb = xapian.Database(self._db_pathname)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/xapian.py", line 2454, in __init__
    _xapian.Database_swiginit(self,_xapian.new_Database(*args))
DatabaseCorruptError: Flint version file ./data/xapian/iamflint should be ((sizeof("IAmFlint""") - 1) + 4) bytes, actually 0

(The backtrace is consistent with the Traceback.txt file attached by apport)

This bug is not so easy.
Software-center has two xapian databases, one for apt and one for internal list of "applications".
According to the backtrace the internal database is causing problems so we cannot use the dbus service.

I'll post a design of possible solution of issue soon.

Zygmunt, is there any update on this issue? could it by any chance have been fixed automagically in maverick?

Omer, I'm sorry I stopped working on that issue after some turmoil with changing jobs. I did not encounter it in maverick and software-center has undergone many changes since then. I'd recommend closing the bug and reopening it if anyone can reproduce it again.