Update manager failed

[sgtryan]

Please help me, I was trying to open the Update Manager and this popped up...

"Could not initialize the package information

An unresolvable problem occurred while initializing the package information.

Please report this bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the following error message:

'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/ph.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_i18n _Translation-en, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'"

[orangep]

Yes, I'm getting the same bug.
I did a clean install: save data, and blitz the disk. Hardware=Compal HE81
notebook computer, Intel Core2 Duo, 1.5 GB ram, 80 GB disk.

The installation from the CD worked, and now, while trying to install something more to make the system actually usable (why no distribution DVD? especially with NFS on it?), I get:

> apt-get update

produces:
...
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates/multiverse Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates/multiverse Translation-en
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates/restricted Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates/restricted Translation-en
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates/universe Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates/universe Translation-en
Fetched 1,550 kB in 40s (38.3 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_restricte d_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Then, attempts to install anything fail:

# apt-get install dselect
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_restricte d_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

And that is the end of Ubuntu version 11.04

Why is this stuff released before debugging?

[matt_symes]

Hi

For both of you.

Open a terminal and type


sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Enter your password. It will not be echoed to the screen. This is normal.

Then type


sudo apt-get update

If it complains about a folder called /var/lib/apt/lists/partial type being missing


sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial

Then type this again


sudo apt-get update

Kind regards

[orangep]

Yes! thank you.

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf

gets rid of the bad file.