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How do I get rid of this?

$ sudo apt-get update
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AppStream system cache was updated, but problems were found: Metadata files have errors: /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml
Reading package lists... Done
E: Problem executing scripts APT::Update::Post-Invoke-Success 'if /usr/bin/test -w /var/cache/app-info -a -e /usr/bin/appstreamcli; then appstreamcli refresh-cache > /dev/null; fi'
E: Sub-process returned an error code

$ sudo appstreamcli --version
AppStream CLI tool version: 0.10.6

$ sudo appstreamcli refresh-cache --force --verbose
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Added /usr/share/app-info/xmls to metadata search path.
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Added /var/lib/app-info/yaml to metadata search path.
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Added /var/cache/app-info/xmls to metadata search path.
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Refreshing AppStream cache
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Searching for data in: /usr/share/app-info/xmls
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Searching for data in: /var/cache/app-info/xmls
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Searching for data in: /var/lib/app-info/yaml
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Reading: /usr/share/app-info/xmls/org.freedesktop.fwupd.xml
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Reading: /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: WARNING: Could not parse XML data: Entity: line 265: parser error : EntityRef: expecting ';'
        <checksum filename="Firmware_SF30&SN30_Pro_V1.26.dat" target="content" t
                                                            ^

---SNIP-------

** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: system/os/package/zathura-pdf-poppler.desktop extends system/os/package/zathura.desktop, but system/os/package/zathura.desktop was not found.
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Error while updating the in-memory data pool: Metadata files have errors: /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml
** (appstreamcli:13014): DEBUG: Stemming language is: en
AppStream system cache was updated, but problems were found: Metadata files have errors: /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml

Looking at: Library corruption error during apt-get update The "remedies" does not help, the problem persists.

Reading this: Ubuntu 16.04: appstreamcli error while get-update ... sadly has an older version to download and install as remedy.

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  • 4
    Sorry, seems to be the same, the remedies described does not help. A "purge" on the package is not a remedy.
    – Hannu
    Jul 2, 2018 at 15:59
  • 3
    I believe this is a different problem. The OP's appstream version (0.10.6) depends on libappstream4. I have the same issue and libappstream3 is not installed. Installing it does not fix the issue. Reinstalling libappstream4 does not fix the issue either. Nor does reinstalling appstream completely
    – ricab
    Jul 4, 2018 at 17:12
  • 2
    The actual fwupd bug: github.com/hughsie/lvfs-website/issues/33
    – ricab
    Jul 4, 2018 at 20:42
  • 4
    @karel et al this is not a duplicate, it is caused by a problem in fwupd that can't be fixed by purges and reinstalls. According to the authors a backport is needed in ubuntu.
    – ricab
    Jul 4, 2018 at 21:07
  • 12
    askubuntu.com/a/1053018/28943 actually contains the answer: manually edit /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml to replace the & by &amp; (in line 265 in my version)
    – Confusion
    Jul 13, 2018 at 8:01

2 Answers 2

4

This requires a manual edit, due to a bug in a settings file for the fwupd package:

sudo apt install expat
xmlwf /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml
sudo vim /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml

Go to the line number given by xmlwf In my case I got

/var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml:268:72: not well-formed (invalid token)

Replace the & character (on the line 268 in my case) with &amp;

Then you can run update again:

sudo apt update
0

To add to Frederik's answer above: The second number after the colon refers to the column where the error is. I also had an issue with the & character. Removing it solved it for me.

You can go directly to the line with vim by entering:

sudo vim +<LINE_NUMBER> /var/cache/app-info/xmls/fwupd.xml

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