E:Problem with MergeList after hotspot connection

[Yuv]

After trying to connect via a hotspot I got the following error message:

/var/lib/apt/lists/ca.archive.ubuntu.com_dists_jaunty_main_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package list or status file could not be parsed or opened.

the error persisted even back home. I investigated and found that /var/lib/apt/lists/ca.archive.ubuntu.com_dists_jaunty_main_binary-i386_Package was corrupted: it contained the full HTML login page to the hotspot.

I googled for the issue and found a short-term solution:

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

Longer term it would be nice if the corruption could be prevented in the first place, i.e. if update-manager would somehow validate the received file before installing it.

Validation should not be limited to syntax checks - if those in control of the network / DNS can spoof an HTML access page in place of legitimate files, couldn't they also spoof malicious entries and misguide the user to install corrupted packages? Since I don't know the internals of update-manager well enough, I can't tell if this bug is a security vulnerability or not.

[Daniel Ejsing-Duun (zilvador)]

Just about the same problem. A fresh install of Ubuntu 10.10 64bit. I opened synaptic and made a searched. After hanging for a few minutes I forced it to close and reopen it to update sources. That when I got following error:
"E: Kunne ikke tolke pakkefilen /var/lib/apt/lists/dk.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_maverick_universe_binary-amd64_Packages (1)
E: Pakkelisterne eller statusfilen kunne ikke tolkes eller åbnes."
Translation gives the same as about: "E: Could not parse the package list [path name]. E:The package list or status file could not be parsed or opened."
Same repair as above worked fine. But this shouldn't happen in the first place.

[David Nielsen (davidnielsen-deactivatedaccount)]

I am seeing this on Natty as well.