Ubuntu – Unable to find expected entry ‘main/binary-i386/Packages – Chrome

aptdpkggoogle-chromepackage-managementupdates

I recently noticed while installing some packages and using the command apt-get update that I ran into the following error:

Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/dists/stable/Release  
Unable to find expected entry 'main/binary-i386/Packages' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file)

As mentioned in THIS recent question on Ask Ubuntu, Chrome will no longer be supported by 32 bit systems, however I am currently running 64 bit Ubuntu 14.04, with libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 installed for 32 bit application support.

Am I seeing this error because dpkg is looking for the i386 packages as a result of the aforementioned install of libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386?

How do I resolve this error?

EDIT – (I was not able to resolve this question with simply updating Chrome as mentioned in the other thread, and not all the information in the other answer was present at the time I posted this).

Best Answer

  1. Open a new Terminal window and run the following command:

    sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list

  2. In the text file that opens edit the file so that the line reads:

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

    The only addition you need to make is entering the [amd64] architecture after deb but preceding the http. Do not edit or replace any other text in this file.

  3. Hit Save. Close the Gedit window.

    Now return to the Terminal and refresh your package list by running:

    sudo apt-get update

    The 'failed to fetch' APT error should no longer appear.

    To prevent the above change being lost, [arch=amd64] needs to be added to the configuration that generates the file edited above:

  4. Run the following command:

    sudo gedit  /opt/google/chrome/cron/google-chrome

  5. In the text file that opens search for deb and once again edit the file so that deb http becomes:

    deb [arch=amd64] http

    Do not edit or replace any other text in this file.

  6. Hit Save. Close the Gedit window.

Sources:

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