Skipping acquire of configured file 'contrib/binary-i386/Packages' as repository … doesn't support architecture 'i386'

Question

I installed Ubuntu 18.04 and then while installing Virtualbox i get the 'i386' error message after I did:

$ sudo apt-get update
Get:1 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease [242 kB]
Hit:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease                                                                
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu bionic InRelease                                         
Hit:4 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease
Hit:5 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease
Get:6 http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic InRelease [4429 B]
Get:7 http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic/contrib amd64 Packages [1426 B]
Fetched 248 kB in 1s (209 kB/s)     
Reading package lists... Done
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'contrib/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386'

I found several answers on Askubuntu for the 'i386' message but I don't know how to apply this to my situation

Answer 1

Edit:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list

and change:

deb https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

for

deb [arch=amd64] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

Or open terminal an execute the following command:

echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list

Update:

I leave a bash script, which installs completely virtualbox without errors and that may be useful. Backup your VMs and settings (~/.config/VirtualBox) before running it:

sudo chmod +x VboxInstall.sh && sudo ./VboxInstall.sh

#!/bin/bash
while true; do
read -p "Do you want to install Virtualbox? (y/n)" answer
case $answer in
  [Yy]* )
# execute command yes
echo "Virtualbox Pack setup..."
echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | apt-key add -
vboxmanage list runningvms | sed -r 's/.*\{(.*)\}/\1/' | xargs -L1 -I {} VBoxManage controlvm {} savestate
killall vboxwebsrv && pkill virtualbox
systemctl stop vboxweb-service.service
export VBOX_VER=`VBoxManage --version|awk -Fr '{print $1}'`
VBoxManage extpack uninstall "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack"
apt -y autoremove --purge virtualbox*
rm -rf /etc/vbox /opt/VirtualBox /usr/lib/virtualbox ~/.config/VirtualBox
apt update && apt autoclean && apt clean && apt autoremove && apt-get -y dist-upgrade && apt -y --fix-broken install
apt -y install virtualbox-6.0 bridge-utils
dpkg --configure -a && apt-get -f -y install
wget -c http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/$VBOX_VER/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-$VBOX_VER.vbox-extpack
VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-$VBOX_VER.vbox-extpack
usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER
systemctl enable vboxweb-service && systemctl start vboxweb-service
update-grub
vboxconfig
echo "Done"
    break;;
        [Nn]* )
    # execute command no
        break;;
    * ) echo; echo "Select: YES (y) or NO (n)";;
 esac
done

Source: Virtualbox kernel service is not running

Answer 2

You should try with a https deb source:

deb [arch=amd64] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

Answer 3

I wanted to add a comment to secretAgent regarding this but I don't have enough reputation for that.

We need not use https for apt packages for the reasons listed on this site: https://whydoesaptnotusehttps.com/

Also, incase your virtualbox source is in /etc/apt/sources.list, ajcg's answer can be modified to:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Edit the line

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

to

deb [arch=amd64] http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

Or you could just fire up your terminal and type

echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list