Apt-get update errors (can't read the package lists)

Question

After running the an update from the update-manager I tried to install chromium:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

And I got the following error (full output from `sudo apt-get update' on Ubuntu Pastebin):

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Malformed 2nd word in the Status line
E: Error occurred while processing curl (UsePackage3)
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/dpkg/status
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Working from this answer I guessed there was something wrong with my MergeList. So per the top answer, I removed the Merge List.

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

Then I attempted an update.

 sudo apt-get update

And got the same set of error messages.

My next thought was that one of the repos I had added was faulty in some manner. /etc/apt/sources.list was full on Canonical sources and nothing else. etc/apt/sources.list.d had a few 3rd party sources I had added (namely heroku and Chris Lea's node.js). Just in case I cleared out that directory with sudo rm *. Then deleted the MergeList, and attempted an update. Same error.

What might be causing this set of errors and how do I correct it?

Please, upload the output that you get after do sudo apt-get update in paste.ubuntu.com and link it in your question editing it. Also, have you read the comment of that answer? — Lucio, Mar 01 '13 at 16:16
output from sudo apt-get update is on paste.ubuntu.com. As for the comment I've deleted the MergeList at least dozen times at this point. — nelsonda, Mar 01 '13 at 16:24
yes yes, you hadn't posted your comment when I said that but somehow we commented at the same time :D. I have to remove it I guess. — Soroosh129, Mar 01 '13 at 16:38
Replacing status with status-old did the job. Thanks to both of you. One last etiquette question though: Should I close this question or answer it myself with a link to the correct answer? — nelsonda, Mar 01 '13 at 16:47

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

1

It appears that /var/lib/dpkg/status got corrupted. The solution was to restore from /var/lib/dpkg/status-old. Before you do that though, read the full answer.

Thanks to Lucio and Soroosh129 for pointing me to the solution.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

1

answered Mar 01 '13 at 21:33

nelsonda

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Apt-get update errors (can't read the package lists)

1 Answers1