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I'm a new user of Ubuntu 13.10. I recently tried to resolve a Skype installation issue and added some PPA involving binary-1386. Every time I run sudo apt-get update, I get the following error:

W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/saucy/Release  Unable to find expected entry 'restricted/binary-1386/Packages' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file)
W: Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/saucy/Release  Unable to find expected entry 'main/binary-1386/Packages' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file)
...
...
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I have spent the last two hours trying to resolve this issue, and made changes to my sources.list file by resetting to.the default saucy settings, but these errors are still occuring. I've also unchecked everything in Software and Updates section, but this still seems to appear. The error messages seem to be related to the 'binary-1386/Packages' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file) issue as shown above.

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  • 3
    Perhaps because you have a "1" instead of an "i" in the entry? main/binary/-i386/Packages
    – douggro
    Nov 29, 2013 at 6:53
  • How do I change '1' to 'i' in main/binary? Thanks, that maybe the issue!
    – ggoober
    Nov 29, 2013 at 7:03
  • which ppa did you add?
    – Avinash Raj
    Nov 29, 2013 at 7:13
  • Edit your question and add the output of cat /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*. Do not use comments.
    – Braiam
    Nov 29, 2013 at 15:27

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
12

I backtracked what I did today: I was following the Skype instructions on help.ubuntu.com/community/Skype And used sudo dpkg --add-architecture 1386 instead of i386. I did a quick search on how to remove dpkg and removed the 1386 that was added, and now everything works!

-- posted by OP in comments.

To remove an incorrect architecture (1386 in this case), run:

sudo dpkg --remove-architecture 1386
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4
  • 1
    How about giving the instruction on how to do that? Or linking to instructions?
    – JellicleCat
    Feb 10, 2016 at 4:47
  • @JellicleCat askubuntu.com/a/189690/158442 (with 1386 instead of i386, of course)
    – muru
    Feb 10, 2016 at 7:14
  • +1 ,I had error Unable to find expected entry 'main/binary-i38/Packages' .I did sudo dpkg --remove-architecture i38
    – Saurabh
    May 19, 2016 at 7:34
  • # sudo dpkg --remove-architecture 1386 dpkg: warning: cannot remove non-foreign architecture '1386'
    – Ashish Karpe
    Apr 26, 2018 at 10:12
7

Open the sources files and search for binary-1386 and replace 1 by i then save..

Sources files are found either in 

/etc/apt/sources.list

and/or you can find many files inside the directory /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

now open the sources file with sudo and edit

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and/or

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/****.list
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1
  • Thanks to douggro's suggestion. I backtracked what I did today: I was following the Skype instructions on help.ubuntu.com/community/Skype And used sudo dpkg --add-architecture 1386 instead of 'i386'. I did a quick search on how to remove dpkg and removed the 1386 that was added, and now everything works! Thanks for all your help though (the issue wasn't in sources.list or sources.list.d since I was struggling with those answers found in other threads). I'm new to Linux/Ubuntu but glad the community's so responsive and helpful so far. Thanks!!
    – ggoober
    Nov 29, 2013 at 7:16
2

I changed my download server and it worked like charm. Here is how you can do it

1.Open 'software and updates' and click the 'Ubuntu Software' tab.

  1. Click 'Download from' and choose 'Other' enter image description here

  2. Click 'Select Best Server'. Ubuntu will take some time to select the best server for you. Accept it.

  3. Now try running the software update again. It should work.

  4. If it does not go through steps 1-4 again. This time Ubuntu will (hopefully) select a different server as the 'Best server'. Try software update again.

THE KEY IS TO CHANGE THE DOWNLOAD SERVER FROM WHERE UBUNTU UPDATES ITSELF.

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