F Fixing Packages Preconfigured multiple times error during package updates in Ubuntu.

After recently upgrading my workspace’ operating system to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, I went ahead to set it up as my old setup, i3wm, i3-gaps, and i3status-rust. Downloaded and installed my favourite browser, Google Chrome and the day went normally, no problem.

Next day, as usual, I try and update my installed packages, and I get hit by the weirdest error ever about how my packages are preconfigured multiple times. At least the good news was they provided where the possible source of the error might be.

W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1
W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1
W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:2
W: Target Packages (main/binary-i386/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:2
W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:2
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:2
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:2
W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:3
W: Target Packages (main/binary-i386/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:3
W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:3
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:3
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:3
W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:4
W: Target Packages (main/binary-i386/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:4
W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:4
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:4
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:4
W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:5
W: Target Packages (main/binary-i386/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:5
W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:5
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:5
W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list:3 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list:5

The Quick fix!

It simply means you have duplicate sources in multiple source files. You can simply remove google.list from /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ with the following command.

sudo rm -rf /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list*

I used wildcard because there were multiple versions of google.list files such as google.list, google.list.save.

Made a blog post for reference.