3

After running the an update from the update-manager I tried to install chromium:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

And I got the following error (full output from `sudo apt-get update' on Ubuntu Pastebin):

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Malformed 2nd word in the Status line
E: Error occurred while processing curl (UsePackage3)
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/dpkg/status
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Working from this answer I guessed there was something wrong with my MergeList. So per the top answer, I removed the Merge List.

 sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf

Then I attempted an update.

 sudo apt-get update

And got the same set of error messages.

My next thought was that one of the repos I had added was faulty in some manner. /etc/apt/sources.list was full on Canonical sources and nothing else. etc/apt/sources.list.d had a few 3rd party sources I had added (namely heroku and Chris Lea's node.js). Just in case I cleared out that directory with sudo rm *. Then deleted the MergeList, and attempted an update. Same error.

What might be causing this set of errors and how do I correct it?

Community
  • 1
nelsonda
  • 623
  • 2
  • 6
  • 14
  • Please, upload the output that you get after do `sudo apt-get update` in paste.ubuntu.com and link it in your question editing it. Also, have you read [the comment](http://askubuntu.com/questions/30072/how-do-i-fix-a-problem-with-mergelist-or-status-file-could-not-be-parsed-err#comment231426_30199) of that answer? – Lucio Mar 01 '13 at 16:16
  • output from `sudo apt-get update` [is on paste.ubuntu.com](http://paste.ubuntu.com/5576692/). As for [the comment](http://askubuntu.com/questions/30072/how-do-i-fix-a-problem-with-mergelist-or-status-file-could-not-be-parsed-err#comment231426_30199) I've deleted the MergeList at least dozen times at this point. – nelsonda Mar 01 '13 at 16:24
  • Try with [this answer](http://askubuntu.com/a/136403/62483), if you didn't yet. – Lucio Mar 01 '13 at 16:32
  • yes yes, you hadn't posted your comment when I said that but somehow we commented at the same time :D. I have to remove it I guess. – Soroosh129 Mar 01 '13 at 16:38
  • Replacing status with status-old did the job. Thanks to both of you. One last etiquette question though: Should I close this question or answer it myself with a link to the correct answer? – nelsonda Mar 01 '13 at 16:47

1 Answers1

1

It appears that /var/lib/dpkg/status got corrupted. The solution was to restore from /var/lib/dpkg/status-old. Before you do that though, read the full answer.

Thanks to Lucio and Soroosh129 for pointing me to the solution.

Community
  • 1
nelsonda
  • 623
  • 2
  • 6
  • 14