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pi@raspberrypi:/$ sudo apt-get update
Hit http://archive.raspberrypi.org wheezy InRelease
Hit http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy InRelease
Hit http://archive.raspberrypi.org wheezy/main armhf Packages
Hit http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/main armhf Packages
Hit http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/contrib armhf Packages
Hit http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/non-free armhf Packages
Hit http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/rpi armhf Packages
Ign http://archive.raspberrypi.org wheezy/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://archive.raspberrypi.org wheezy/main Translation-en
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/contrib Translation-en_US
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/main Translation-en
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/non-free Translation-en_US
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/non-free Translation-en
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/rpi Translation-en_US
Ign http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy/rpi Translation-en
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Problem parsing dependency Depends
E: Error occurred while processing libwww-mechanize-perl (NewVersion2)
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/mirrordirector.raspbian.org_raspbian_dists_wheezy_main_binary-armhf_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
pi@raspberrypi:/$

I deleted the file mentioned

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/mirrordirector.raspbian.org_raspbian_dists_wheezy_main_binary-armhf_Packages

And reran the update, but it failed again after the download.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
13

According to this blog post, and this askubuntu question you need to enter the following at the command line:

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf

and then run 

sudo apt-get update
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  • This worked (getting rid of all the files instead of just the one with the error), there must be some file interdependency which doesn't show up in the error message.
    – Cade Roux
    Commented Sep 21, 2012 at 14:58
  • @CadeRoux if you look at the 2 links I included it seems to have something to do with old files in the cache and is a known bug in Ubuntu at least - probably with apt.
    – Steve Robillard
    Commented Sep 21, 2012 at 17:40
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Hmm, this might be unrelated as it appears you solved your problem, however I found this page when I googled a similiar 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.

I had ignored the unzip error write error (disk full?) when I unzipped raspbian jessie to an sd card. The .img file was truncated to 4gb due to the size limitations of the fat32 filesystem. I went back and unzipped the image to an ext3 filesystem instead (ntfs would also work for >4Gb files), dd'd it and could then apt-get update.

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