Apt / MintUpdate fails to download all repository indexes.

[Darren Gibbard]

When using Mint Update or Apt i am receiving the error:

W: Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/isadora/Release Unable to find expected entry universe/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

When running a curl on the repo, there are no reports of "universe/binary-i386" contained; yet it is supplied in the apt-sources list by default?

The sources.list.save file refers to the french Linux Mint repo (http://packages.linuxmint-fr.net) which also returned the same error.

Please see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50785 for more information.

[Tuckson (eric-houtjes)]

Very same error to me, using Linux Mint 9

[Nicolás Pereyra Molinas (pereyra)]

I have a same error:
W: Imposible obtener http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/isadora/Release Unable to find expected entry universe/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)

E: Algunos archivos de índice no se han podido descargar, se han ignorado,
o se ha utilizado unos antiguos en su lugar.

My /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ lucid partner
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free

# deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps
# deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games

[Tom rooze.sen (tomrooze-sen)]

Very same error to me, using Linux Mint 9 < My to.

[danny (earthworm-dan)]

same error here, Linux Mint 9 64bit edition... its driving me nuts, starting to think I should have just stuck with old faithfull ubuntu

[watersprayer (watersprayer)]

Same Error message and looking for a fix. Tried forums Mint, Ubuntu and general and have not found a fix. Thank you and may your lord your god bless you all.

[jajodo (jajodo3)]

The fix is here: read post of martini44.
The problem is caused by an error in the sources.list file.
Fortunately the corruption is easy to correct.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50785&start=0

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

There is no "universe" section in Linux Mint.

So the line below is incorrect:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import universe

It should be:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

To fix this problem,

- open a terminal
- type "sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list"
- Find the line for the Isadora repository (looks something like deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import universe) and remove "universe" from it.
- Save the file and close the file editor.
- Type "apt update" to re-update your cache.

Now, about the origin of the problem. I don't really see where it's coming from. By default, the sources are fine. The software-properties tool doesn't hardcode universe or anything of the sort... I don't really see where this "universe" keyword is being stuck to the sources. There's definitely a bug somewhere, but I'm failing to find its origin.

[damienpol (damienpol)]

I think the problem is to install the plugin for firefox in ubuntu one "Bindwood." Greetings.

[jajodo (jajodo3)]

Did install ubuntuone packages.

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

dameinpol: What makes you say that? I installed xul-ext-bindwood and didn't notice anything. The package doesn't even come with a postinst script...

[damienpol (damienpol)]

sorry for my English, is machine translation.
When installing packages "Ubuntu One" and start the program when
create your account in the program options tab to see a
install the firefox extension. When it tells you it is necessary
enable universe, password and asks you not being able to turn fails
universe. When you reopen the program and want to install again
extension, the extension is installed but when the problem appears in
repositories. I hope I have helped.

[damienpol (damienpol)]

In short, I think the "Ubuntu One" tries to activate the
repository "universe" to install the extension.

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

Thanks a lot damienpol.

[jajodo (jajodo3)]

Don't have Bindwood installed so there may be other components of Ubuntuone that activate the universe repository.

[Jonathan Lacson (71kr117)]

I edited my /etc/apt/sources.list.

It looks like this before:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ lucid partner
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps
deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games

# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bean123ch/burg/ubuntu lucid main
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main
deb http://apt.last.fm/ debian stable

Remove the universe from "deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import universe" so it looks like this.

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ lucid partner
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps
deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games

# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bean123ch/burg/ubuntu lucid main
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main
deb http://apt.last.fm/ debian stable

Problem fixed.

[Jonathan Lacson (71kr117)]

Oops, looks like clem already posted that.

[Axel (freakaxel)]

I was having the same issue in Isadora KDE. I fixed it, but I saw that there were suggestions that there's a package that could be modifying the sources.list and adding the "universe" word. If that's the cause, the package does not comes from Ubuntu, it comes probably from Mint. Here's why:

I also had the "Universe" word and it was causing the same issues. But the word wasn't anywhere in sources.list. I realized that not all the sources present in the "Software Sources" GUI were in the file sources.list. So after looking for more files with repositories information I found these files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d: mintkde.list.save, mintkde.list, mint.list.save and mint.list. The issue was with the mint.list file (mint.list.save too but since it's probably just a backup file nothing changed upon modification). Now, since mint.list is a specific Linux Mint file, how would a Ubuntu package even know of it's existence?

If there is some package adding information to .list files I would recommend to begin the search with Mint-specific packages.

Regards,
Axel

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

Well, not necessarily... I personally suspect software-properties.

[Nic-gould (nic-gould)]

Hi, using Isadora and I just added UbuntuOne and the firefox Plugin and got this bug.

From the looks of it this is the most common cause. There are probably others, but luckily a quick googling and this was fixed in less time than it took me to figure out how to Install 'one' from the Fracking PPA....

Thanks Clem.

[Sonic4Spuds (sonic4spuds)]

I experienced the same problem on Julia stable release recently. It did happen after trying to install the firefox plugin for ubuntuone. The install failed due to missing repository index according to the manager. I may try doing this on my fresh install to see if it happens again.

[Justin (deadite81)]

This just happened to me after ticking the "backports" and "romeo" check boxes in Software Sources. Simply unticking the boxes did not fix it, I had to remove the word "universe" from sources.list. Drove me nuts for a couple of days. There should be a disclaimer somewhere to notify inexperienced users about this. Searching the Mint Forums led to all the wrong answers, which are normally the right answers, just not in this case. Luckily I typed the right thing into Google and found this bug (after many, many tries) or I'd have never figured it out. The error message says nothing about "universe," it only says that the Mint repo couldn't be contacted, which led me to believe it had nothing to do with me at all. So anyway, my rants point is that this bug is still happening :)

[yagodlt (yagodlt)]

Had the same problem in Julia with ubuntu one extension for firefox. Fortunately deleting the word "universe" from the main deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ also fixed it for me :D
Maybe this should be reported as an Ubuntu One bug?

[Justin (deadite81)]

I should note that this happened to me and I don't have any Ubuntu One packages installed. All I did was tick "Backports" and "Romeo" in Software Sources. I noticed that most of the reports have to do with Ubuntu One, but that is not the case for me.

[Kreuger Burns (car-crazy33)]

My sources.list doesn't have universe on my Isadora line. Just in the Ubuntu repos lines. I still have the problem

[Jeremy Davis (jedmeister)]

I have this issue too (Linux Mint 10 LXDE). It started a while ago but I just ignored it until today. Editing the sources.list (and removing the reference to mint universe) solved it for me, but I have no idea what caused it...

[Emily Tack (eks54)]

Newbie, here...

Since August this year, I have been using Linux Mint 10 Julia, and really like it, but I am very "code-ignorant".

Just in the last few days, I have had my main menu disappear from the panel, along with all of the other applications that were in my panels, and I have been getting the pesky OAFIID:Gnome_NotificationAreaApplet, error, along with OAFIID errors, about the Indicator Applet, the Clock Applet, the Window List Applet, the Show Desktop Applet, and the GNOME_mintmenu Applet. This happened after I ran the update manager.

Unable to add anything to panels, as the error messages preclude that from happening.

In addition, I am no longer able to connect to the internet.

I have Linux Mint 10 installed. When I checked the terminal, is says I have ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV) dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux stripped IF that is helpful.

Very frustrated, as I have spent the better part of 2 days, searching online through my laptop, for a fix. So far, nothing has worked, despite my applying everything that I have read.

Using my laptop to post this, but need my main computer with the Linux OS back online, and running properly.

All apps are gone, with the exception of those on my desktop. Help, please.

[Emily Tack (eks54)]

P.S. I do not show the "universe" thing on my sources list....

[Darren Gibbard (dalgibbard)]

Sorry but the issue you're posting here sounds irrelevant to the original
bug- may I suggest visiting http://forums.linuxmint.com instead?
On Dec 12, 2011 6:41 PM, "Emily Tack" <email address hidden> wrote:

> Newbie, here...
>
> Since August this year, I have been using Linux Mint 10 Julia, and
> really like it, but I am very "code-ignorant".
>
> Just in the last few days, I have had my main menu disappear from the
> panel, along with all of the other applications that were in my panels,
> and I have been getting the pesky OAFIID:Gnome_NotificationAreaApplet,
> error, along with OAFIID errors, about the Indicator Applet, the Clock
> Applet, the Window List Applet, the Show Desktop Applet, and the
> GNOME_mintmenu Applet. This happened after I ran the update manager.
>
> Unable to add anything to panels, as the error messages preclude that
> from happening.
>
> In addition, I am no longer able to connect to the internet.
>
> I have Linux Mint 10 installed. When I checked the terminal, is says I
> have ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV)
> dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux stripped IF that is
> helpful.
>
> Very frustrated, as I have spent the better part of 2 days, searching
> online through my laptop, for a fix. So far, nothing has worked, despite
> my applying everything that I have read.
>
> Using my laptop to post this, but need my main computer with the Linux
> OS back online, and running properly.
>
> All apps are gone, with the exception of those on my desktop. Help,
> please.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/600674
>
> Title:
> Apt / MintUpdate fails to download all repository indexes.
>
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When using Mint Update or Apt i am receiving the error:
>
> W: Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/isadora/Release Unable to find expected entry universe/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index
> file (malformed Release file?)
> E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old
> ones used instead.
>
> When running a curl on the repo, there are no reports of
> "universe/binary-i386" contained; yet it is supplied in the apt-
> sources list by default?
>
> The sources.list.save file refers to the french Linux Mint repo
> (http://packages.linuxmint-fr.net) which also returned the same error.
>
> Please see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50785 for
> more information.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/600674/+subscriptions
>

[Emily Tack (eks54)]

Sorry. I have been through hundreds of posts there, for days. No help. Apologies...

[souprebel (souprebel)]

Found this bug report here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50785&sid=13023d5c07ed882c570996d596d79aac
I am on mint julia
Had this for the last few weeks have just thought it was a server issue
I could not update through manager nor terminal just got
     W: Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/julia/Release Unable to find expected entry multiverse/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)

I am a noob so I dont go to far or fast
I used this post
: Mint Update failing to download all repository indexes.

Postby martinis44 on Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:14 am
Having investigated a bit more, I think this may be due to a dodgy line which has been written to /etc/apt/sources.list
On checking it out, there appears to be no 'universe' or 'multiverse' at http://packages.linuxmint.com/ for isadora (or see http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/isadora/), so I amended the line (actually hashed it out and added a new line without these two collections), using

Code: Select all
    gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

from a terminal. The new /etc/apt/sources.list now looks like:

Code: Select all
    #deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import universe multiverse
    deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ isadora main upstream import
    deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ lucid partner
    deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free

    # deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps
    # deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games

and all seems to be working well. I assume it is a bug somewhere, but cannot think what action caused the file to be amended.

And in my own source list I had no hash marks so I added hash marks. I did not delete any words(multiverse or universe), saved and closed source list.
I then did a sudo apt-get update and all seemed to go well asked to install and saw no probs, then after closing I used update manager and did not get the error message of FAILED TO Fetch. It updated just like new!

I do not know what those hash marks do but they sure seem important! for now all is well!

[Nim (nim)]

Linux Mint Nadia / Cinnamon 64
3.10.13 Update Error: Failed to load mint repositories.
No recent hardware / software additions / subtractions to the system.
Last update: 3.03.13 No errors.

Raw Unchanched Sources.List:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ nadia main upstream import
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ quantal partner
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ quantal free non-free

# deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu quantal-getdeb apps
# deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu quantal-getdeb games

[yarly (ih8junkmai1)]

In Mint 15, in appears that mintupdate checks all repo for translation packages (like translation-en , etc).

These attempts fail.

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

Is this still a valid bug? Does it affect any of the currently supported releases (Maya, Nadia, Petra?)

[Darren Gibbard (dalgibbard)]

I certainly haven't had the issue in a long time. Probably worth closing as
it's been a while!
On 7 Apr 2014 13:46, "chemicalfan" <email address hidden> wrote:

> Is this still a valid bug? Does it affect any of the currently supported
> releases (Maya, Nadia, Petra?)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/600674
>
> Title:
> Apt / MintUpdate fails to download all repository indexes.
>
> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When using Mint Update or Apt i am receiving the error:
>
> W: Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/isadora/Release Unable to find expected entry universe/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index
> file (malformed Release file?)
> E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old
> ones used instead.
>
> When running a curl on the repo, there are no reports of
> "universe/binary-i386" contained; yet it is supplied in the apt-
> sources list by default?
>
> The sources.list.save file refers to the french Linux Mint repo
> (http://packages.linuxmint-fr.net) which also returned the same error.
>
> Please see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50785 for
> more information.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/600674/+subscriptions
>

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

Closing this bug as fix released. The vast majority of APT tools were replaced with Mint techs (mintsources, pinned apturl, mintinstall, mintupdate, mintdrivers) and our repositories also accept universe/multiverse since this bug to work around this issue.

It's worth mentioning that we never found out what caused this issue in the first place, although we're confident it doesn't happen anymore.