update-manager crashes

[teseo pisu]

Binary package hint: update-manager

'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty_main_binary-amd64_Packages, E:L'elenco dei pacchetti o il file di stato non può essere letto o aperto.'

[Allan E Cano (accounts-l)]

Just to add to this I recieved the same error.

Could not initialize the package information

An unresolvable problem occurred while initializing 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_natty_main_binary-amd64_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

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Version Info
$ uname -a
Linux itrus-ubuntu 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:24 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Allan E Cano (accounts-l)]

Was alerted that this was a duplicate of Bug #346386. Found the solution in this report.

Simplest version that worked for me:

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