Unsupported architecture 'i386' when running `apt update` on Virtualbox bionic repo

Question

Encountered this today where there were no issues before, console logs follow:

Hit:3 https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic InRelease 

---

N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'contrib/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386'

Is this a problem with the repository, or with my own config? The same operation had no issue as recently as 3 days ago.

Solution

Manual comparison of previous 16.04 LTS folder structure

with current 18.04 LTS folder structure

gives interesting result: it seems that Oracle dropped 32 bit for bionic repository.

See information on official Downloads page:

VirtualBox binaries

By downloading, you agree to the terms and conditions of the respective license.

If you're looking for the latest VirtualBox 5.2 packages, see VirtualBox 5.2 builds. >Please also use version 5.2 if you still need support for 32-bit hosts, as this has been discontinued in 6.0. Version 5.2 will remain supported until July 2020.

So you should change repository line in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list to

deb [arch=amd64] http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib

Comments

[weelillad]

Thanks for the comprehensive explanation, it works and I can now update the repository without errors. By the way, the method to update /etc/apt/sources.list can be referenced from askubuntu.com/a/1029865/909537. In summary, run sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list from the terminal.

[N0rbert]

Thanks, fixed the path. And marked question as duplicate.

[fkraiem]

@weelillad "I can now update the repository without errors." It was already updating without errors; the message you got was prefixed with N, indicating that it was a notice. Errors are prefixed with E.