Whenever I try to install anything with the Ubuntu Software Center, the following error appears.

Failed to download repository information

Check your Internet connection.

E:Unable to parse package file /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_multiverse_i18n_Index (1)

3

6 Answers

Try cleaning up your apt-cache and running any updates

sudo apt-get clean sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade

If you still have issues, then change your repo mirror: Open Update Manager or Software Updater, then click Settings > Ubuntu Software tab, then select Other from the Download From menu and click the Select Best Server button. Once finished, the best server will show up selected (highlighted), so just click the Choose Server button. Now try updating/upgrading again.

6

"Software Updater" will give same error message for issues like:

W: Failed to fetch 404 Not Found

Solution: Settings -> Software & Updates -> Other Software -> Click on offending entry and hit Remove (OR simply un-check so its ignored yet visible for later)

Another way to un-check the bad entries is to

/etc/apt grep -r some_string

for example

grep -r ufraw /etc/apt

which will return the file containing string ufraw so then edit that file and comment out the line mentioning string ufraw

This shuts off updates to the package linked to this file ... the symptom will go away ... problem often due to using a package not yet customized for the version of OS you are on

5

This is the same issue I'm also facing with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. My device is connected to a 'metered connection'(I'm thinking the issue is because I have set this connection as metered. Not sure though). But I have found a way to update even after this error.

  1. Click on the 'settings' option below that error message and it will open the 'software & Updates'.
  2. Now just close the 'Software & Updates' window and you will see the updates are available for download and installing.

I don't know the reason behind this error. If someone could add upon this it will be helpful. But this definitely works. I have done this for more than two weeks.

Hope it helps you!

Assure cdrom is unchecked then cut and paste entire set of below commands 

sudo apt-get clean cd /var/lib/apt sudo mv lists lists.old_`date '+%Y%m%d_%H%M%S'` sudo mkdir -p lists/partial sudo apt-get clean sudo apt-get update

I had the same issue when upgrading from 18.10 to the newest version. In my case the reason was that I had some packages marked as kept back. This is what I did.

$ sudo apt upgrade Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Calculating upgrade... Done The following packages have been kept back: libodbc1 0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 2 not to upgrade.

I simply removed them along with their dependencies:

$ sudo apt remove libodbc1 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: odbcinst odbcinst1debian2 Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them. The following packages will be REMOVED freetds-bin libodbc1

Then the following sequence of commands led me to the successful upgrade:

sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade sudo apt dist-upgrade sudo do-release-upgrade

there is something that worked for me:

please goto update manager settings > under Ubuntu software tab uncheck "cdrom with Ubuntu 12.04 'precise pangolin'"

then under other softwares tab uncheck first three options which are cdrom with Ubuntu 11.04 and 12.04 and etc.