Update Manager Fails

[ken ken]

When starting up Update Manager (using Ubuntu 12.04) it fails to initialize. A popup window generates the following message "Could not initialize the package information.
An unresolvable problem occurred while initialising 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/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_restricted_binary-amd64_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened."

When I try "ubuntu-bug /usr/bin/update-manager" it tries to collect information, but then it popup "Invalid problem report. Could not determine the package or source package name." and in the xterm it says "apport-gtk:4053): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_main_quit: assertion `main_loops != NULL' failed"

When I try "sudo apt-get update" I get at bunch of errors, especially cdrom errors though I do not have a cdrom

lsb_release -rd: Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS Release: 12.04
apt-cache policy pkgname: E: Encountered a section with no Package: header E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_restricted_binary-amd64_Packages E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened

I do not have a cdrom or drive e .... not sure where this came from.

-- ken

[Sami Jaktholm (sjakthol)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Reviewing your bug report it seems that you are experiencing bug 346386. This issue happens when you have tried to update your package information when you are a network that didn't return the right files. This issue can be cleaned up by using the following commands in a terminal:

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update

Thanks and good luck!