Ubuntu
apt package

  1. Bug #756317
  2. Comment #17

Comment 17 for bug 756317

Revision history for this message
Vlad Orlov (monsta) wrote : Re: Captive portals may corrupt apt package lists

Of course this is not fixed anywhere.

E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_saucy-security_main_i18n_Translation-en
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

APT cannot recover from it automatically, and that is the serious problem for the unsuspecting users: they have no idea that they need to remove /var/lib/apt/lists/* manually and then update the package index to make APT work again.

This problem happens so often these days that the Linux Mint developers even had to add the "Fix MergeList problem" button to their software sources management tool.