Update manager can not open due to missing /var/lib/dpkg/status
Solution 1:
sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/status-old /var/lib/dpkg/status
And then try to update.
Solution 2:
I had the same problem. I couldn't do ANYTHING involving the apt command or update manager, so I couldn't even get the tools that people recommeded I'd use to fix the problem.
I navigated to cd/var/lib/dpkg and found that it only contained 2 files: labels and lock. No status or anything.
So I just created a status file using
touch /var/lib/dpkg/status
and then I could use apt-get again. I did clean, purge, update and all that but it didn't help. Dpkg was useless. Seems like this can occur quite often, for instace if you shutdown during an update. I had to recover dpkg from scratch http://people.adams.edu/~cdmiller/posts/Ubuntu-dpkg-recovery/
Solution 3:
Only 2 commands works for me:
cp /var/backups/dpkg.status.0 /var/lib/dpkg/status.
sudo apt-get update