hello. I run ubuntu 12.04. recently, I got "an unexpected error has occured with package manager." so I investigated it and tried to run this.


sudo apt-get install fix package manager

and got

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise-updates_multiverse_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.



so I tied this because of the "section with no package:header

sudo apt-get install linux headers. and got


Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise-updates_multiverse_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.


anyone got any ideas?

This is a bug that is yet to be fixed in Ubuntu according to this bug report.
The workaround suggested is,

WORKAROUND:
Remove problematic files from /var/lib/apt/lists/ and rerun apt-get update.

I haven't encountered this myself so I don't know if this workaround will help.

I'll give it a shot next time i have the chance. what problematic files am I looking for?