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[SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:17 pm
by DougB
I've been running UP5 Cinnamon/MATE with no problems for a number of weeks, but after a recent Update suddenly find the Synaptic and Update Managers totally screwed.
On opening Synaptic Manager I get the following message:
"E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_import_i18n_Translation-en
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report."
and Synaptic Manager crashes.

On opening Update Manager I get this:
"W: GPG error: http://lmde-mirror.gwendallebihan.net testing Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 07DC563D1F41B907 Christian Marillat <marillat@debian.org>"
On closing that window, this appears:
"E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_import_i18n_Translation-en
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report"

and at the bottom of the Update Manager panel is the message:
"Could not refresh the list of packages"

How do I get Synaptic and Update managers back to working?

Re: Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:53 pm
by xenopeek
You can remove the package lists, and then fetch them anew. To do so open a terminal and run the following two commands (one at a time):

Code: Select all

sudo rm -fv /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
That should solve the MergeList issue.

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:34 pm
by DougB
Many thanks; that did the trick :D

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:34 pm
by Massimiliano
Thanks, I had the same issues and this worked perfectly! :-)

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 3:25 am
by anassor
Me too! thank you :D
but i'd like to know what happened, why that error appeared...anyone can explain? i have no idea how mergelist works.

Re: Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 4:58 pm
by ImpliedConsent
xenopeek wrote:You can remove the package lists, and then fetch them anew. To do so open a terminal and run the following two commands (one at a time):

Code: Select all

sudo rm -fv /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
That should solve the MergeList issue.
Perfecto - I had a feeling I needed to remove the lists - this sealed it and now I'm golden as well. TY

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 7:44 pm
by tomdiana
Thank you! This also fixed this problem for me.

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:09 pm
by hman469
Thank you, finding this fix made my day!

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Thu May 02, 2013 2:42 pm
by ber
Thank you, this fixed my problem too.
Another question...this happens quite often on my system.

I would be able to resolve it somehow- essentially i can see that its related to my repository list not being correct- why does it change??

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 3:18 am
by xenopeek
The new mintSources program in development for Linux Mint 15 (but AFAIK also coming to LMDE) will have a button to fix such issues. See heading "Latest development" here: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2337. I'm not sure why it happens, perhaps related to interrupted network connection?
ber wrote:essentially i can see that its related to my repository list not being correct
How so? Can you share your repository list. Do so with copying the output of the following command:

Code: Select all

inxi -r

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Thu May 16, 2013 2:39 pm
by J@n
Hi All,

Had the same problem and the tip from Xenopeek did the job for the better part. After I applied the "sudo rm ..." and the "sudo update..." I got this error:
W: GPG error: http://mintlinux.mirror.triple-it.nl nadia Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 3EE67F3D0FF405B2 Clement Lefebvre (Linux Mint Package Repository v1) <root@linuxmint.com>
I changed the download server (Update Manager > Software Sources > Download from) to another server and presto! Updates came flying in without a glitch.

HTH

Greetz,

J@n

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Thu May 16, 2013 3:53 pm
by KeesA
I had the same problem as you today J@n.
Thanks for help, I changed to the main server and no bad sign message came up.
Any thoughts why triple-it.nl gave the message?

Re: Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:02 pm
by sg1efc
xenopeek wrote:You can remove the package lists, and then fetch them anew. To do so open a terminal and run the following two commands (one at a time):

Code: Select all

sudo rm -fv /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
That should solve the MergeList issue.
Thank you very much Xenopeek, this also worked for me. :)

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:40 pm
by clemrutter
Thanks for the solution- it solved it for me. What happened? How many folk are sitting out there locked out? Technically can it it be automagically corrected? It seems like a bug that needs to be detected in future and dealt with before the user discovers it.

Re: Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:05 pm
by mohinga
xenopeek wrote:You can remove the package lists, and then fetch them anew. To do so open a terminal and run the following two commands (one at a time):

Code: Select all

sudo rm -fv /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
That should solve the MergeList issue.
thanks xenopeek that solved my problem. Only thing was it needed a reboot to take effect. I guess most linux users would know that, but I didn't. I plead old age... fortunately the idea to reboot eventually arose.

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:05 pm
by Ali Adnan
the problem returns again after few minutes ,
in terminal
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.removed/ubuntu/dists/ ... 6/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 141.101.116.236 80]

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

???

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:55 pm
by killer de bug
First, the old thread is not yours.
You should create a new post to describe your issue.

Second, if you use LMDE, you should not have repo from Ubuntu enabled.

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptic and Update Managers screwed in UP5

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 12:32 am
by Pilosopong Tasyo
Ali Adnan: As suggested, please start a new thread in the appropriate section of the forum. Thread locked.