Software Center in Ubuntu 12.04 crashes on startup

Recently the Software Center started crashing on startup. Initially I thought it was due to network issues, but after a further examination it turned out not to be the case.
Running it from the panel will not give you any feedback about why it crashes, so I executed it command line to see what is going on:

/usr/bin/software-center

That produced the following output:

2012-05-23 09:47:04,729 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None'
2012-05-23 09:47:04,732 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True
2012-05-23 09:47:04,926 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file
2012-05-23 09:47:05,129 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 243, in open
    self._cache = apt.Cache(GtkMainIterationProgress())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 102, in __init__
    self.open(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 145, in open
    self._cache = apt_pkg.Cache(progress)
SystemError: E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
2012-05-23 09:47:06,770 - softwarecenter.db.enquire - ERROR - _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 115, in _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs
    tmp_matches = enquire.get_mset(0, len(self.db), None, xfilter)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__
    if (not pkgname in self.cache and
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 263, in __contains__
    return self._cache.__contains__(k)
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./software-center", line 176, in 
    app.run(args)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1343, in run
    self.show_available_packages(args)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1273, in show_available_packages
    self.view_manager.set_active_view(ViewPages.AVAILABLE)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/session/viewmanager.py", line 149, in set_active_view
    view_widget.init_view()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/availablepane.py", line 168, in init_view
    self.apps_filter)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 240, in __init__
    self.build(desktopdir)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 491, in build
    self._build_homepage_view()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 266, in _build_homepage_view
    self._append_whats_new()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 430, in _append_whats_new
    whats_new_cat = self._update_whats_new_content()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 419, in _update_whats_new_content
    docs = whats_new_cat.get_documents(self.db)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 124, in get_documents
    nonblocking_load=False)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 317, in set_query
    self._blocking_perform_search()
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 212, in _blocking_perform_search
    matches = enquire.get_mset(0, self.limit, None, xfilter)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__
    if (not pkgname in self.cache and
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 263, in __contains__
    return self._cache.__contains__(k)
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__'

As you can see in the SystemError part, it seems to have an issue with the one of the repository lists in /var/lib/apt/lists/, so the natural solution as this post suggests is to remove the one it is complaing about or better yet, remove all and run apt-get update to create them again:

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update

You should be good to go…