Ubuntu

error message for ubuntu

Asked by dannycrobo1

i have a little icon on the top of my screen, it is a red circle with a white line through it.

it says that i must run the pckage manager. when i do so, this error message appears:

E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-security_restricted_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

please what do i do because i cannot run my update tool or anything.

dan

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dannycrobo1 (dannycrobo1) said : 		#1

also, as added detail, this message also appears when i right click and select show updates:

An unresolvable problem occurred while initialising the package information.

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

'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-security_restricted_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

thanks dan

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André Gondim (andregondim) said : 		#2

try

sudo apt-get autoremove && sudo apt-get autoclean

and then

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get full-upgrade -y

Cheers.

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dannycrobo1 (dannycrobo1) said : 		#3

hey andre, when i open the terminal and do sudo apt-get autoremove, this message appears:

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-security_restricted_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

i dont understand whats happening here.

dan

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dannycrobo1 (dannycrobo1) said : 		#4

everytime i go to the location of the file, which is var/lib/apt/lists all the security files when selected come up with a notice of a bt home hub not being installed correctly and such but i dont use bt and this certain internet connection i only used once as it is my girlfriends nexdoor neighbours, i connected accidentally and it was an unsecure network.

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Tom (tom6) said : 		#5

Does it also say something like "Please run; dpkg --configure -a"?

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Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg) said : 		#6

Hi,

First please make sure to close all open programs, including all package managers like Synaptic, Add/remove programs, etc ...

Then please try this procedure:

Step 1: Open Terminal from "Applications->Accessories->
Terminal"

Step 2: Run the following commands (copy-paste each line below to the Terminal then hit <enter> after each line)

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/info/*
sudo apt-get update
sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo dpkg --clear-avail
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo aptitude install -f
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Step 3: Please post results (copy/paste terminal output from each command) on this thread

Hope it helps,

Regards,

Mark

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