sudo apt-get update error: Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file

Question

I recently tried to install npm and nodejs and got some errors and was suggested to run sudo apt-get update.

After running sudo apt-get update I get the following error:

 Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty/Release  Unable to find expected entry 'universe/binary-amd64/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.

The output of cat /etc/apt/sources.list is :

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main universe restricted multiverse

Answer 1

This is because most of your PPA are outdated or doesn't exist anymore.

Look at your /etc/sources.list (or the files in /etc/sources.list.d) and remove or fix those lines that cause the error.

Also have a look at this answer by fossfreedom for a good and detailed explanation and it will help you.