bad data in the apt lists/ dir can lead to a problem that apt-get update can not fix

[jtorrance]

If a gateway/proxy/provider gives out bogus html pages on apt-get update that may result in broken files in the apt lists/ dir. A subsequent apt-get update will not fix that automatically because of the if-modified-since header that apt uses. This leads a situation where the only fix is to remove /var/lib/apt/lists/* manually on the commandline.

(Original description):
Binary package hint: update-manager

I lost my connection during an update of Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. It initially told me my update failed and now when I try and run update manager I get

'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/nz.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-backports_restricted_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Could you please attach the file /var/lib/apt/lists/nz.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-backports_restricted_binary-i386_Packages to this bugreport and remove it afterwards?

[jtorrance (john-torrance)]

here you go Michael

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks, this file contains a generic html page. It appears the nz.archive.ubuntu.com server was giving out bad data. If you remove the file (or maybe all files in the lists directory) and run "sudo apt-get update" does that work then for you?

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

I just added a faul simulation for this to my "fault-injecting-proxy" project at lp:~mvo/+junk/fault-injecting-proxy

With that it seems to be remarkable hard to trigger, Release and Release.gpg need to return 404 but the Packages files need to return a bogus page.

[jtorrance (john-torrance)]

hi Michael
Thanks a heap - update worked, now I will try the upgrade

Cheers
John

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

@jtorrance, any news about this issue? have you upgraded your system successful?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for apt (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]