cant update system error

this is the full message:

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/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

Please open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t) and issue the command

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-i386_Packages

When asked for your password please enter it (and note that when entering the password you will see no feedback, no echo, not even '*' placeholders) and then try to update your system again.

If this does not work please follow the instructions as given in
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure
with the exception that in step 5 you should not open a new question, but continue in this one.

thanks but didnt work so i will install it from cd.cheers for the help.

Of course you are free to disregard any comment and help attempt. Still I would be interested in hearing what there was in my instruction that 'didnt work'. Getting feedback will provide information for improvement of the support, that future questions from other people might be answered better. Just shrugging a support attempt off with a short sentence does not encourage the supporters to spend their free time in helping ubuntu users.

Did you try the "sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu..." command?
Did you receive any error message?
Did you try a system update again, and were there error messages shown?

Did you try the PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure?
What messages were shown there?

every thing you told me to do i tried but still got the same error mess as above.

I received the first Initial error here

"E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_restricted_binary-i386_Packages
"
I then tried this in a terminal:

"sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-i386_Packages"

No error messages after running this, but when I run a simple sudo apt-get update I receive the same error listed above. I will now try the PackageManagerTroubleingProcedure and let you know what I find.

OK. I cannot follow the PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure since I get stopped just trying to open the UpdateManager. A window pops up and says the same error. This is a show stopper. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Error Window: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1471889/errors/ubuntu-update-error.png

this also happened on a friends laptop to. i went back and reinstalled 10.4 all working fine.there is something wrong with the new uptdate. wait a while for them to fix the bugs then update.good luck.

If you examine your error messages closely you will see that there are two slightly different ones:

E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_restricted_binary-i386_Packages
E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-i386_Packages

With each attempt of running update-manager you saw only one, because update-manager stops after the first error.

Your situation is the following:
1. You received the error message
Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-i386_Packages
2. executing the command given in response #2 above (sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-i386_Packages) solved that problem, but
3. your next attempt to run update-manager ended with
Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_restricted_binary-i386_Packages
which is a different error!

You could now correct that problem by issuing the following command:
sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_restricted_binary-i386_Packages
and try update-manager again.

You would probably receive another error, and you would have to run another "sudo rm ..." command and try again, until finally all broken lists have been deleted and the update-manager on your system is running again.

There is one command that clears up all locally stored lists (which by the way is part of the https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure)

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial

My proposal ist that you execute these three commands and try to run update-manager again.

This worked perfectly for me;

"There is one command that clears up all locally stored lists (which by the way is part of the https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure)

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial

My proposal ist that you execute these three commands and try to run update-manager again."

Thank you for answering this problem.