Malformed line in my sources list, how to resolve?

Question

Before i start, i've tried the solution from this thread

How do I remove a malformed line from my sources.list?

but unfortunately, the steps performed in that thread are already covered for me. The error I'm getting is:

Malformed line 3 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudarchive-havana.list (dist)
E: The list of sources could not be read.

I'm not too sure what is causing this but it won't allow me to use the ubuntu software center or perform any updates.

Here is the output from the malformed directory:

deb http://ubuntu-cloud.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise-updates/havana main

deb-src http://ubuntu-cloud.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise-updates/havana main

deb http://docs.openstack.org/havana/install-guide/install/apt/content/basics-packages.html

Can anyone point me in the direction of a solution please?

Answer 1

Why is there a html page in your sources?

deb http://docs.openstack.org/havana/install-guide/install/apt/content/basics-packages.html

This does not belong in sources.list since it is not of a normal format.

Compare it to the other 2 and you will see the sources.list needs 4 sections and there are only 2 on this like. It is missing precise-updates/havana and main

Answer 2

The last line doesn't look right, I've never seen a ppa source ending as "something.html" so you could try commenting it and leaving the file like this:

deb http://ubuntu-cloud.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise-updates/havana main
deb-src http://ubuntu-cloud.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise-updates/havana main
#deb http://docs.openstack.org/havana/install-guide/install/apt/content/basics-packages.html

To edit the file, open a terminal and type this:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudarchive-havana.list

Then, try to run an update again.