Ubuntu Desktop and Google Chrome – ‘Failed to Fetch’

Ubuntu and Google Chrome

The last few days, I’ve been repeatedly getting the following when I do an apt-get update on my Ubuntu Desktop (14.04, if that matters).

W: 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)
 
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Some light reading and specifically this post on OMGUbuntu, coupled with some instructions in the comments section, led me to the following solution which works for now.

Step 1: Modify the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list file as follows:

## Change this line
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
 
## to this
deb [arch=amd64]  http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

Step 2: Modify the /etc/default/google-chrome file as follows:

## Change this line
repo_reenable_on_distupgrade="true"
 
## to this
repo_reenable_on_distupgrade="false"

Step 3: Run apt-get update and your output should be clean:

hendri@techedemic:/etc/default$ sudo apt-get update
Ign http://za.archive.ubuntu.com trusty InRelease
Ign http://dl.google.com stable InRelease                                      
Hit http://za.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates InRelease                      
Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com trusty InRelease                                  
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security InRelease       
 
### content snipped ###
 
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net trusty/main Translation-en_ZA                     
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net trusty/main Translation-en                        
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net trusty/main Translation-en_ZA                     
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net trusty/main Translation-en                        
Reading package lists... Done                                                  
hendri@techedemic:/etc/default$

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Comments

      1. Hi Cliff,

        Did it work for you as suggested?

        Regards,
        Hendri

        Reply
  1. Hi Cliff,

    The solution should be similar. You will have to look for a sources.list file specifically for chrome-remote-desktop.
    Perhaps chrome-remote-desktop.list ?

    Then, add the [arc=amd64] portion after the deb keyword.

    Reply
  2. Mark B

    Had the same problem and it worked for me to modify the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/chrome-remote-desktop.list file so it now says:
    deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome-remote-desktop/deb/ stable main
    ***copy and paste fix command should be:
    sudo sed -i -e ‘s/deb http/deb [arch=amd64] http/’ “/etc/apt/sources.list.d/chrome-remote-desktop.list”

    Reply
  3. JLoButADude

    Thanks, all! Chrome is no longer an issue for me, but I still have problems with Chrome Remote Desktop. After following these instructions, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/chrome-remote-desktop.list is still being reset after some amount of time (seems like a day). There must be a cron job or something that is overwriting my changes.

    I found a cron job for Chrome to overwrite its sources list: /opt/google/chrome/cron/google-chrome But I don’t see any similar file for chrome-remote-desktop

    Any ideas?

    I am using Linux Mint 17.1.

    Reply