apt error parsing package information

[Jim Bosch]

Following an attempt to automatically update package information while I was on a generally poor network connection, the apt package information somehow got into an apparently unrecoverable state, in which even attempts to use apport to report the bug failed due to the inability to look up package information. I first saw the error as a red flag from the update manager in the notification area, but I see the same error when running "apt-get update" from the command line. The full error message in both cases is:

E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise-security_main_i18n_Translation-en
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

This is Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS.

I haven't attempted to clean up the package state myself at all, except to run "apt-get clean", which didn't work.

[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:

1.) sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*
2.) sudo apt-get update

Thanks and good luck!