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Last week our web host was DDOSed and in the aftermath, one of our servers is experiencing problems.
The server runs Debian Jessie, and every time I try to run apt-get update
, I get the following error:
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/dpkg/status
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
Everything I've found suggests this can normally be resolved by either running sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf
or sudo dpkg --configure -a
beforehand, but neither is working for me. I've also tried switching to a different mirror, but that doesn't solve the problem.
Any suggestions, folks?
1Your error message simply means that your status file has been corrupted. You should first remove it, rm /var/lib/dpkg/status, then recreate it, touch /var/lib/dpkg/status, then do an update plus an upgrade. If this does not work, check the permissions and ownership of both status file and its directory tree. – MariusMatutiae – 2016-02-15T10:33:11.790
1And, sorry, I forgot, just make sure there is enough room left free on the disk, you never know.... – MariusMatutiae – 2016-02-15T10:47:58.183
@MariusMatutiae That resolved it. Thanks very much - stick it in an answer and I'll accept it. – mattbd – 2016-02-15T10:50:29.557