import causes EOFError: EOF read where not expected

Can you still reproduce this on current Quantal? This sounds like a strange Python bug or hard disk error, etc. If "ubuntu-drivers devices" still crashes, please attach /var/log/kern.log after the crash.

Does this command work or crash?

  python3 -c 'import UbuntuDrivers.detect'

If it crashes, please do

 python3 -vc 'import UbuntuDrivers.detect' 2> /tmp/python3-debug

and attach /tmp/python3-debug here.

I've been bitten by this bug too, attaching the requested output.

To give some more context, the update process froze halfway through (no mouse input, no tty, no ssh possible) and had to do a hard reboot and resume the upgrade process manually.

From your log I see that this happens from various places, like "import apt", "import xml.dom" (which comes with python3.2 by default), etc. I have no idea what could happen there, though :-(

this is nothing python specific. Find all files where the md5sum doesn't match the one in /var/lib/dpkg/info.
Or maybe just look for files with size 0. and reinstall these packages.
Maybe this kind of check should be run automatically after a crash/hard reboot.

I managed to fix it by a mixture of clearing the apt cache, reinstalling python3 and python3-minimal, and deleting all .pyc files python complained about when doing the imports.

Hey I am getting thise erorr by trying to run software-properties-gtk

edvinas@ed:~ $ software-center
2012-11-10 16:56:46,038 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None'
2012-11-10 16:56:46,045 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True
2012-11-10 16:56:46,821 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file
2012-11-10 16:56:46,879 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - show_available_packages: search_text is '', app is None.
2012-11-10 16:56:46,882 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 257, in open
    self._cache = apt.Cache(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 102, in __init__
    self.open(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 149, in open
    self._list.read_main_list()
SystemError: E:Opening /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-ppa.launchpad.net_commercial-ppa-uploaders_ryzom_ubuntu.list - ifstream::ifstream (13: Permission denied)
2012-11-10 16:56:50,021 - softwarecenter.db.enquire - ERROR - _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 115, in _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs
    tmp_matches = enquire.get_mset(0, len(self.db), None, xfilter)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__
    if (not pkgname in self.cache and
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 277, in __contains__
    return self._cache.__contains__(k)
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/software-center", line 182, in <module>
    app.run(args)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1387, in run
    self.show_available_packages(args)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1325, in show_available_packages
    self.view_manager.set_active_view(ViewPages.AVAILABLE)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/session/viewmanager.py", line 151, in set_active_view
    view_widget.init_view()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/availablepane.py", line 173, in init_view
    self.cache, self.db, self.icons, self.apps_filter)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/lobbyview.py", line 80, in __init__
    self.build()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/lobbyview.py", line 324, in build
    self._build_homepage_view()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/lobbyview.py", line 119, in _build_homepage_view
    self._append_whats_new()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/lobbyview.py", line 253, in _append_whats_new
    whats_new_cat = self._update_whats_new_content()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/lobbyview.py", line 238, in _update_wha...