Ubuntu
update-manager package

Synaptic package manager fails to lanch

Asked by Thomas Binns

This is mesg I get. Im' using
Ubuntu 11.04 - the Natty Narwhal - released in April 2011

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.canonical.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_partner_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

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For:
Ubuntu update-manager Edit question
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Solved by:
actionparsnip
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Revision history for this message
Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Try:

sudo cp -arf /var/lib/dpkg /var/lib/dpkg.backup
sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/status-old /var/lib/dpkg/status
sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/available-old /var/lib/dpkg/available
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dpkg/updates/*
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial
sudo aptitude clean
sudo aptitude autoclean
sudo apt-get update
sudo dpkg --clear-avail
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo aptitude install -f
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Revision history for this message
Thomas Binns (thomas-binns) said : 		#2

this worked ecept didnt have aptitude but apt-get worked with the other comands so I installed aptitude and did the rest

hope it it boots next time

thanxs

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

You can install aptitude if you prefer it, it's just not default now.

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Simon741 (simon-okko) said : 		#4

Just ran into this problem too. Any idea what causes this problem?

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

No idea personally, I just know the fix.

I believe the file gets mangled in some way and it breaks the packaging system. This is one of the many weaknesses in package based distributions as it makes packages unable to be added or removed without a whole bunch of effort.