Review: Don’t Use Microsoft Teams Preview in Ubuntu 20.04 as of May 2020 until bugs are fixed.


So I have been using teams regularly on Ubuntu 20.04. Things that I noticed were:

  • Mid-call crashes
  • Worst call quality (I could hear the electrons around the atoms)
  • Not being able to find the buttons to control screen (expecting in future)
  • Caused a Mergelist corruption when running apt-get update

TL;DR; I had to UNINSTALL MICROSOFT TEAMS. And I’ll suggest not using teams until it is no longer in Preview

BUT!

This is not why I am posting this. The reason I am posting this is because it messed with my Ubuntu 20.04 system.

I saw a red warning symbol in my notification that said that I was not able to update my system.

apt-get update could not work. Upon inspection, I found this:

codeonion@codeonion-ThinkPad-P50:~$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for codeonion: 
Hit:1 http://ppa.launchpad.net/lutris-team/lutris/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease                                                                                                                            
Hit:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease                                                                                                                        
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/stebbins/handbrake-releases/ubuntu focal InRelease                                                                                                       
Hit:5 http://pk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease                                                                                                                               
Hit:6 http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable InRelease                                                                                                                       
Hit:7 http://pk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease                                                                                                                       
Hit:8 https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu focal InRelease                                                                                                                          
Hit:9 https://download.sublimetext.com apt/stable/ InRelease                                                                                                         
Hit:10 http://pk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease                                           
Hit:11 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/18.04/mssql-server-2019 bionic InRelease    
Hit:12 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/18.04/prod bionic InRelease
Hit:13 https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/19.10/prod eoan InRelease
Hit:14 https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable InRelease
Hit:15 https://dbeaver.io/debs/dbeaver-ce  InRelease
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Malformed Description-md5 line; doesn't have the required length (32 != 33) '"129fb0c:f9aeae8e8d848457773b5c4e'
E: Malformed Description-md5 line; doesn't have the required length (32 != 33) '"129fb0c:f9aeae8e8d848457773b5c4e'
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/pk.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal_universe_i18n_Translation-en
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Mergelist problem

E: Malformed Description-md5 line; doesn't have the required length (32 != 33) '"129fb0c:f9aeae8e8d848457773b5c4e'
E: Malformed Description-md5 line; doesn't have the required length (32 != 33) '"129fb0c:f9aeae8e8d848457773b5c4e'
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/pk.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal_universe_i18n_Translation-en

The following had to be done to fix this

sudo rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial
sudo apt-get update

It worked partially but apt-get update still gave me a Mergelist problem.

So I had to UNINSTALL MICROSOFT TEAMS

Then, when I ran

sudo rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo mkdir /var/lib/apt/lists/partial
sudo apt-get update

The system got back on its feet, the warning notification disappeared. Looks like until it is in preview, I’ll stick to using Teams on the web only.

Special Thanks to this Gist. @d2s, you are a lifesaver.


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