320

Getting below error message while issuing :

sudo apt-get update

Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease [95.8 kB]
Ign:2 http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian wheezy/mongodb-org/3.2 InRelease                                                                                                            
Ign:3 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease                                                                                                                         
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-x/vulkan/ubuntu xenial InRelease                                                                                                
Hit:5 http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian wheezy/mongodb-org/3.2 Release                                                                            
Hit:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease                                                  
Ign:7 http://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb stable InRelease                                                     
Hit:8 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease                                                   
Ign:9 http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu wily InRelease                                           
Hit:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/numix/ppa/ubuntu xenial InRelease                              
Get:12 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release [782 B]      
Hit:13 http://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb stable Release                  
Ign:14 https://apt.dockerproject.org/repo ubuntu-wily InRelease          
Hit:15 https://apt.dockerproject.org/repo ubuntu-wily Release            
Get:16 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release.gpg [181 B]  
Hit:17 http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu wily Release                                  
Get:20 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable/main amd64 Packages [1,191 B]
Fetched 98.0 kB in 0s (118 kB/s)                                 
Reading package lists... Done
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'main/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386'

This cuts across various releases of ubuntu

Also seeing a similar glitch after enabling Ubuntu pro on my 22.04 ... now shows

sudo apt-get update
... 
Reading package lists... Done
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'main/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'https://esm.ubuntu.com/realtime/ubuntu jammy InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386'
Improve this question
10
  • 8
    @Pilot6 (and others who voted for this question being off-topic): This is not specific to a particular Ubuntu version. It affects all users of Google Chrome on Ubuntu who have the Chrome repository enabled.
    – Gunnar Hjalmarsson
    Mar 5, 2016 at 3:43
  • Chrome repository?
    – guntbert
    Mar 6, 2016 at 18:45
  • @guntbert: I referred to Google's repository from where the updates are fetched.
    – Gunnar Hjalmarsson
    Mar 6, 2016 at 20:59
  • 3
    @GunnarHjalmarsson what's the point of re-opening, since it's a dupe of askubuntu.com/questions/724093/… anyway?
    – muru
    Mar 6, 2016 at 21:14
  • 5
    I can't see, why this should be a duplicate of the mentioned question. The source of the problem is the same, but the context is different (64 vs 32 bit).
    – Murmel
    Mar 9, 2016 at 13:35

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
524

I tracked down offending repo (any for Google chrome in this dir)

cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
grep chrome * | grep -v amd64

or more generally

grep -r google  /etc/apt | grep -v amd64

Now do same as below for each repo file which matches above

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome-unstable.list

### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ###
# You may comment out this entry, but any other modifications may be lost.
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

SOLUTION : limit to just 64 bit by introducing the [arch=amd64]

deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

similar solution to fixing bug when upgrading to Ubuntu pro

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-realtime-kernel.list  
#  original bad ... comment out next line
deb https://esm.ubuntu.com/realtime/ubuntu jammy main
#  fixed by adding [arch=amd64] to above line as per
deb [arch=amd64] https://esm.ubuntu.com/realtime/ubuntu jammy main

NOTE : If you are trying to apply this solution for another package which as a .list file containing a line similar to this :

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared jammy main

The solution is to add the architecture flag inside the square brackets, separated from the other arguments with a space. Here is an example :

deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared jammy main

ROOT CAUSE : Google dropped support for 32-bit Chrome on Linux triggering an error when updating apt in 64-bit systems (with multi arch enabled) ... details here : http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/03/fix-failed-to-fetch-google-chrome-apt-error-ubuntu

To confirm you are using 64 bit ubuntu with multiarch enabled issue

dpkg --print-foreign-architectures

if it says

i386

then you have added 32 bit support, this will list your native arch ... issue

dpkg --print-architecture

if you are native 64 you will see this output so do SOLUTION shown above

amd64

issue below to show packages using 32 bit

dpkg --get-selections | grep 386

Here is the command to remove multi architecture ( only if you have no 32 bit applications )

sudo dpkg --remove-architecture i386
Improve this answer
10
  • 11
    This answer works very well (thank you!), however the file that needs to be edited (in your example /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome-unstable.list) is automatically configured on a regular basis, so the fix is written over and needs to be added over and over again. Any suggestions to overcome this?
    – sebpardo
    Feb 7, 2018 at 3:21
  • 2
    I love the thoroughness of this answer. Good work. Thank you.
    – Max
    Jan 10, 2022 at 14:24
  • 2
    @EugenKonkov dpkg --get-selections | grep 386 might help
    – Cie6ohpa
    May 9, 2022 at 15:01
  • 2
    Cloudflared [pkg.cloudflare.com/index.html] introduces this issue on Ubuntu 22.04; love how well this was documented; thank you
    – avluis
    Nov 18, 2022 at 11:05
  • 1
    This answer helped me fix what turned out to be the same issue for the Keybase package. I just made the same change in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/keybase.list, adding [arch=amd64] and that fixed the issue. (I also applied the more permanent fix in Eric Mintz' solution - see my comment there.)
    – Dave Yarwood
    Aug 7, 2023 at 0:22
43

(this solution is for Ubuntu Bionic Beaver)
First, shame on Google for letting this issue linger so long!!

Here's how to fix it:
As already mentioned above, editing files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d seems to work... but only temporarily. The next day, the problem is back.

Here's why:

The file /etc/cron.daily/google-earth-pro runs daily and overwrites what you have in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list.

To fix it once and for all, edit /etc/cron.daily/google-earth-pro.
Find this line:

REPOCONFIG="deb http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main"

...and change it to:

REPOCONFIG="deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main"
Improve this answer
7
  • 1
    For immediate change for Google Earth, it might be worth editing the files google-earth-pro.list and google-earth-pro.list.save.
    – Jaydin
    Dec 17, 2018 at 4:12
  • The line to change would be at LINE 24
    – Andor Kiss
    Jan 29, 2019 at 11:53
  • Thank you. [arch=amd64] solved my problem with virtualbox 6.0
    – Simon Fontana Oscarsson
    Feb 23, 2019 at 21:58
  • 1
    Interesting, I did this AND the sources file still gets re-written.
    – Andor Kiss
    Mar 24, 2019 at 14:39
  • 1
    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list covers google-chrome-stable, google-chrome-beta and google-chrome-unstable. cat /opt/google/chrome-beta/cron/google-chrome-beta | grep "REPOCONFIG=". cat /opt/google/chrome-unstable/cron/google-chrome-unstable | grep "REPOCONFIG=". All three point to stable.
    – noobninja
    Jan 18, 2020 at 17:50
27

Changing

deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

to

deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

in each of

  • /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-musicmanager.list
  • /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-musicmanager.list.save
  • /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-musicmanager.list.distUpgrade

seems to fix the issue for Google Music Manager for Play Music too. Not sure if it will revert these changes at some point as the files are automatically configured.

Improve this answer
2
  • 3
    for me file to change was /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list
    – catch23
    Oct 27, 2018 at 20:09
  • 1
    ### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ### # You may comment out this entry, but any other modifications may be lost.
    – Ferroao
    Aug 7, 2019 at 21:50
8

Note that the above answers give accurate solutions for the ONE-LINE-STYLE format .list files; however, the verbose DEB822-STYLE FORMAT needs to use the full Architectures option instead of the abbreviated arch option to restrict the repo's packages to your desired architecture.

For example:

# /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apache-arrow.sources


Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://apache.jfrog.io/artifactory/arrow/ubuntu/
Suites: focal
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/apache-arrow-apt-source.gpg
Architectures: amd64

Details on this option and others can be found with man sources.list

Improve this answer
1
  • Thank you for this answer. After installing Ubuntu 2404, the sources changed to this format so this was the answer I was looking for.
    – Vijay Prema
    yesterday
7

Although Google has fixed this issue for Chrome, it still appears for e.g. Google Earth.

Adding [arch=amd64] fixes the issue, but it needs to be added over and over again.

After making the file immutable as proposed by a webupd8 article and running into issues because of that, my current solution is to add a cronjob to apply the fix automatically once every hour:

~$ sudo crontab -e

0 * * * * sed -i 's/^deb http/deb [arch=amd64] http/' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth.list

(Replace google-earth.list if necessary).

Improve this answer
2
  • Out of curiosity what keeps changing this file? In my experience, apt sources files don't get changed by themselves
    – Jonathan
    Jul 4, 2018 at 15:20
  • 1
    Sergio Rus reckons that Google eventually fixed it for Chrome such that your one-time change would be preserved over updates.
    – Martin Dorey
    Jul 11, 2018 at 23:25
4

Though this question has been marked solved, I was unable to solve this issue with any of the above answers. I used an another method. Go to 'software & updates' > ubuntu software > download from > select best server. Now wait for some time for the system to find it out. Once this gets done, try your command again. This worked for me.

Improve this answer
2
4

I add my 2 cent. Sorry If I have a Debian 10 and not an Ubuntu, but my answer is in-topic.

I had the same problem due to mariadb repo. It was added to sources.list as 

deb [arch=amd64,i386,ppc64el] http://ftp.nluug.nl/db/mariadb/repo/10.3/debian buster main

I simply removed i386 and ppc64el

deb [arch=amd64] http://ftp.nluug.nl/db/mariadb/repo/10.3/debian buster main
Improve this answer
2

Even if this question is marked solved, for me, on Ubuntu 18.04, changed a line in /etc/apt/sources.list from deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main to deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main.

There was no file named /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome-unstable.list. Making the same changes in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list gave warnings saying that target package is configured multiple times. (in sources.list and google-chrome.list)

Improve this answer
2

Change my source list

deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal main

to

deb [arch=amd64] https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal main
Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .