[Bug 463122] Re: more robustnesss against broken Translation files

[rt_davies]

I'd expand scope on this to all files under /var/lib/apt/lists.  I can
reproduce this issue easily, in fact, it's been happening every day,
here's how...

I have the Update Manager setting "Check for updates: Daily", which
apparently tries to check for updates as soon as *it thinks* my machine
has network access.  Problem is that lately I've been connecting to a
wireless LAN that immediately establishes a connection, but redirects
all traffic to web authentication page (you know the kind?  they're
common in hotels, conferences, universities, etc).  So, as soon as my
laptop connects to this network, Update Manager happily updates all the
files in /var/lib/app/lists, but the files all contain the html of the
wireless LAN authentication page.  Then apt, synaptic and update manager
all fail miserably until I remove every file.

Obviously, turning off "Check for updates" is a work-around, but then I
have to remember to manually check for updates.  It would be nice if
apt/synaptic/update manager detected bad package list/status files and
could recover gracefully.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/463122

Title:
  more robustnesss against broken Translation files

Status in “apt” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: update-manager

  After recent updates to Karmic (I was away for a week), Update-
  manager, apt-get and Synaptic all crash when run:

  
  Could not initialise the package information

  An unresolvable problem occurred while initialising the package
  information.

  Please report this bug for the 'update-manager' package and try to
  include the following error message:

  'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with
  MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/gb.archive.ubuntu
  .com_ubuntu_dists_karmic_main_i18n_Translation-en%5fGB, E:The package
  lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'

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