Software updater fails to start

[Liam Proven]

On 16 June 2015 at 14:04, Chas IRONS <ironscf at telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Hi all
>
> Software updater won't start when there are updates available. I did click
> the Report button without any response.
>
> Then I get this error on starting Synaptic Package Manager as instructed
> in the Notifications bar.
> E: Unable to parse package file
> /var/lib/apt/lists/za.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_trusty-updates_main_i18n_Translation-en
> (1)
> E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
> E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
>
> Also ran apt-get with this result:
> chas at Charles-PC:~$ sudo apt-get check
> [sudo] password for chas:
> Reading package lists... Error!
> E: Unable to parse package file
> /var/lib/apt/lists/za.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_trusty-updates_main_i18n_Translation-en
> (1)
> E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
>
> Hope someone can guide me to fix this.
>

Try this. [1] Clear the APT cache, [2] do the update from the shell, [3]
reboot, and I bet it'll be all fine.

[1]

sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove

If that works, try

[2]

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y

Whether that works or not:

[3]

sudo touch /forcefsck
sudo shutdown -r now

... which will reboot. Afterwards I'm betting it'll be fine.



-- 
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