9:34 p.m.
A week or so ago I had the unfortunate experience of upgrading my Virgin
20Mb system to 30Mb with their new Super-Hubs.
I'm not going into details here but an engineer came and 'set it up' for
me - including activating the system.
It's working sort-of OK.
Anyhow today I had a message on my Ubuntu 10.10 system
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList
/var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_maverick-security_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
It occurred to me that I hadn't been updated recently.
I looked at file "
/var/lib/apt/lists/security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_maverick-security_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages"
which contained
<html>
<head>
<title>Broadband Activation</title>
<style type="text/css">
body { text-align:center; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<a href="https://act2.virginmedia.com/Activation/start.do">Please click
on this link to proceed with Broadband Activation...</a>
</body>
</html>
How the H*** did that happen !!!
Luckily I had taken a backup 2 days earlier and recovered the file and I
think I'm OK
weird
Iain
9:42 p.m.
Sometimes suppliers redirect all web page requests to an "activation" page like
that. They forget that there may be automated stuff also making web requests. Once you
go through the activation process everything works as normal.
Seems a bit daft that Ubuntu accepted an unparseable file though - it should have rejected
it as nonsense.
Adam
6:46 a.m.
i too had the switch over to the 30mb connection from 20mb.
we were meant to have the "engineer install" which consisted of a guy
dropping it off and when asked about the "engineer install" he said "i
don't
know anything about that I'm a delivery driver" was just a case of switching
and ringing virgin to get it "activated" then making sure they aren't going
to charge us for said "engineer install" because if they do i think i'll
charge them for the "engineer install seeing as i did it for them.
Also the wi-fi seems to have died on my "superhub" withing about 2 days of
install. So i just wired in my "old" N wireless router and it's working
fine
and dandy.
So tbh it doesn't shock me virgin are making silly mistakes etc. :)
thanks for reading,
martin
On 4 March 2011 21:42, Adam Naylor <a(a)u.gg> wrote:
Sometimes suppliers redirect all web page requests to an
"activation" page
like that. They forget that there may be automated stuff also making web
requests. Once you go through the activation process everything works as
normal.
Seems a bit daft that Ubuntu accepted an unparseable file though - it
should have rejected it as nonsense.
Adam
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2:47 a.m.
On Fri, 2011-03-04 at 21:42 +0000, Adam Naylor wrote:
Sometimes suppliers redirect all web page requests to an
"activation"
page like that. They forget that there may be automated stuff also
making web requests. Once you go through the activation process
everything works as normal.
Iain, try running:
'sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get update'
If not, delete the file you mention and re-update.
Seems a bit daft that Ubuntu accepted an unparseable file though -
it
should have rejected it as nonsense.
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
^ I think it did, Adam. :)
Tom
4:41 a.m.
----- "Tom Hill" <tom(a)ninjabadger.net> wrote:
...
> E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or
opened.
> E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
^ I think it did, Adam. :)
Fair point, but Ubuntu's scripts didn't make it easy - they should have grabbed
the next parseable version and used that IMO.
Or at least said "broken file, click here (URL) to fix, or await next update when we
will fix it automatically for you.
Not having a go at Ubuntu, just how I think stuff like this should work when it gets daft
info from the web.
Adam
5102
days inactive
5104
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Adam Naylor -
Iain Simpson -
martin rome -
Tom Hill