Ubuntu
update-manager package

Updater says "COuld Not initialize package information" and then crashes! What does that mean?

Asked by Manuel Diaz

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/76.73.4.58_ubuntu_dists_precise_universe_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

Then, it crashes and doesn't let me access updater. What can I do to resolve this?

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samuel (samuel-h) said : 		#1

Have you attempted to manually add any ppas recentely, it sounds like the list files (the ones which list which packages are available and which are installed on your system), have been corrupted in some form.

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Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg) said : 		#2

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure

Please post full Terminal output here:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/204382

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Manuel Diaz (puretodasoul) said : 		#3

 This is the full output on terminal: 'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/76.73.4.58_ubuntu_dists_precise_universe_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.' unless there is another way to get it

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Manuel Diaz (puretodasoul) said : 		#4

This is what it does when I feed it this command:
cool@cool420:~$ sudo apt-get install upgrade
[sudo] password for cool:
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/76.73.4.58_ubuntu_dists_precise_universe_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
cool@cool420:~$

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#5

The problem with "no Package: header" is covered in https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+faq/1591

You should have followed Mark Rijckenberg's instructions to execute the steps as described in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure.

The lines

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

that are contained in that procedure usually solve that problem.

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