Comment 1 for bug 346386

I confirm this bug. It started today.
2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

All updates done. Proposed NOT enabled.

It prevents Synaptic and Update-Manager GUIs to run. They shut down upon encountering the error.

From terminal it looks like this:

$ sudo aptitude update
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.heanet.ie_pub_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-updates_main_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.heanet.ie_pub_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-updates_main_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

apt-get returns the same
Update Manager returns more or less the same in the GUI:

'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.heanet.ie_pub_ubuntu_dists_jaunty-updates_main_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

It is a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/358012 reported in Synaptic. And it is not repository specific as suggested in some places.

It is an old bug it seems, fixed in 2003, that has come back:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=195301 - where it says:
"This bug was fixed in 0.8.5 with the help of Matt Zimmermann."

Following these instructions works for some (from http://oclug.on.ca/archives/linux/2007-February/001056.html):

cd /var/lib/dpkg
sudo mv status status-bad
sudo cp status-old status

sudo apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

For others this was also needed:
sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock

While for the rest of us nothing seems to work so far!

In other words: CONFIRMED