ADD/REMOVE Software Broken - Pirut to blame?

I already posted this elsewhere, but I think it got buried deep in a thread. I tried adding Skype the other day, though I'm a Linux newbie and clearly did something I shouldn't have, and now I get the error message I've copied below every time I go on to add/remove software. Pirut seems to be to blame (whatever that is!). I've installed the latest updates and have the right click menu working. I tried visiting Bugzilla, as suggested by the error message but couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do with the error report there.

Any help on solving this would really be appreciated!

An unhandled exception has occurred. This is most likely a bug. Please save the crash dump and file a detailed bug report against pirut at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla

Component: pirut
Summary: TB29ec97ad ini.py:563:readfp:UnboundLocalError: local variable 'line' referenced before assignment

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 476, in <module>
main()
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 469, in main
pm = PackageManager(options.config, options.onlyrepo)
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 63, in __init__
GraphicalYumBase.__init__(self, False, config)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/pirut/__init__.py", line 129, in __init__
plugin_types=(yum.plugins.TYPE_CORE,))
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 113, in doConfigSetup
errorlevel=errorlevel)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 164, in _getConfig
self.getReposFromConfig()
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 229, in getReposFromConfig
parser.readfp(confpp_obj)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/iniparse/compat.py", line 106, in readfp
self.data.readfp(fp)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/iniparse/ini.py", line 563, in readfp
if line and line[-1]=='\n':
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'line' referenced before assignment

Local variables in innermost frame:
pending_lines: []
fp: <yum.parser.ConfigPreProcessor instance at 0x85ecaec>
exc: None
self:
cur_section_name: None
linecount: 0
cur_option_name: None
fname: file://///etc/yum.repos.d/skype.repo
cur_option: None
cur_section: None

 

I got the same error. I just looked up what I wanted in the browse mode then when I found something I went and searched for it. I found that I could add it from there with no issues.

 

thanks for the reply - not sure if i'm missing something obvious, but how did you get to the 'browse' mode' you mentioned?

 

When you open the package manger, there are 3 tabs. Browse, Search, List.

Browse is the one pirut has problems with (I wonder if you could reinstall the package... hmm, I'll have to try that)
Search has no problems to my knowlege, you just have to know what you want.
I don't really like List, simply because it takes a bit to load the entire list.

So Browse is the default tab opened. At the top you can see the other options.

 

I can't even get that far - I get the error message as soon as I click on add/remove software. I think I'm going to have to restore Linpus (I hope I'm right in assuming that will cure this problem!)