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Camilo Piñón Blanco
Asked: 2020-03-19 08:51:45 +0800 CST

Problem with MergeList during apt-get [duplicate]

  • 772

Whenever I try to install something, I get the same error:

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/repo.mongodb.org_apt_ubuntu_dists_bionic_mongodb-org_4.0_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

I've tried to do the following:

sudo rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists/*    
sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get update

which was the solution proposed in many places, but it didn't work.
Does anybody know how to fix this?

software-installation package-management apt merge 19.10

4 Answers

  1. Remove mongo lists in:

    /etc/apt/sources.list.d

    then:

    sudo rm -vf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
    • 7

  2. I seemed to have to do the following, which is a combination of several posts I've seen that didn't work for me.

    1: Remove all mongo lists in /etc/apt/sources.list.d

    cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d && sudo rm -rf mongo*

    2: Remove everything in /var/lib/apt/lists/

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

    3: Clean

    sudo apt clean

    4: Update

    sudo apt update
    • 3

  3. Same problem Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS

    Solution: Use the following commands in this order

    cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d

    Move or remove mongodb-org-4.0.list, here I moved it with mv, use rm insteand to delete.

    sudo mv mongodb-org-4.0.list /home/

    (Remember to change the directory, provide where you want to put it so that you can still reuse it if things go wrong)

    remove all lists

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

    regenerate them

    sudo apt-get update

    Now you can use again Software Updater.

    • 1

  4. Remove the problematic repositories, then try removing the MergeList, and then regenerate it:

    sudo rm -vf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
    • 0