Error during update with invalid sources.list file

[Janaka Subhawickrama]

Binary package hint: update-manager

In Kubuntu open "Adept Package manager". Click "Fetch updates" and wait for syncing. Click "Version Upgrade" button, a new window opens. Click "Next >" button. Wait for downloads to complete. Click "Finish" button. Wait for the procedure to happen. Then in the middle of "Preparing to upgrade", you get the following errors.

Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy-security/Release Unable to find expected entry testing/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy/Release Unable to find expected entry testing/source/Sources in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy-updates/Release Unable to find expected entry testing/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy-proposed/Release Unable to find expected entry testing/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy-backports/Release Unable to find expected entry testing/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please add all the files contained in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ to your bug report as separate attachments? Thanks in advance.

[Janaka Subhawickrama (janakas)]

Found a workaround, until we find the real reason for this error. It was to do with the </etc/apt/sources.list> file. I used the attached file instead of the one I had, and whola it worked!
The old file must have had an error/special character in its contents that apt couldn't decode.
Procedure to update (for Nubees):
1. Save your existing Apt sources file. eg:
sudo cp -v /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.<yourname>20071109

2. Download and save the attached sources file to a known location. Then copy it over the existing sources file. Eg:
sudo cp -v <downloadedDirectory>/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list

3. Re-run the upgrade procedure as described in
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading

[Janaka Subhawickrama (janakas)]

Here are the files you requested. Note that these files may not contain everything you wanted, as I have done a full upgrade since changing the sources.list.
I have added the old sources.list that gave me trouble and the new one I used to successfully upgrade.
Cheers and Happy bug hunting. :)
  Janaka

[Janaka Subhawickrama (janakas)]

Problem seems to be with the inclusion of the "testing" component for the following "gutsy" repositories
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-security
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-security
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-backports
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-backports

I'm not an expert on this, but to go out on a limb; I'll say that some of the above repositories does not include a "testing" component, hence apt cant verify its validity. Given that I haven't manually changed the "/etc/apt/sources.list" file, I will say that its probably a typo error by an kubuntu update developer (Most likely someone who moved from Debian to Ubuntu, because Debian guys are big on naming their repositories "stable", "unstable" and "testing"). Just to give a further clue, I had to use an "alternative" CD to install "fiesty" on this machine and I was trying to update that to "gutsy".
Cheers
  Janaka

[Jon Dowland (jond)]

Bug description is for adept package manager, not update-manager...

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Though really, it is expected that there are errors when the sources.list contains invalid entries.