There are no lists to move. If a dist-upgrade fails, executing apt-get update renews, what you would call a list.
I do a dist-upgrade by logging out of whatever window manager I'm in. For me it's KDE.
I do ctrl-alt-F1 to bring up a terminal (tty)
I log in as root
I execute systemctl stop lightdm, then,
I do apt-get update, then,
I do apt-get dist-upgrade, then,
I do systemctl reboot.
If apt-get update fails, and, it's because a package cannot be retrieved, it may be because the mirror is syncing. If that's the case, then one should wait for a while and try again. If the problem doesn't resolve itself, you can try another mirror. If the problem still doesn't resolve, then post the error here, so someone can help you.
Without seeing the error, (you can copy it, or take a pic and post it), it's going to be hard to tell you exactly what to do.