When Packages list is being downloaded, apt has a mechanism to try one type of compression before trying another. It may fail with the first and succeed with the later in an operation that is in the end considered successful. In this scenario packagekit refresh-cache always fails. ====== Error I receive from application (Plinth, web UI for FreedomBox). E: http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main armhf Packages is not (yet) available () ====== Apt-get update showing a failed Packages retrieval attempt but ultimately succeeding. root@freedombox:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d# apt-get update Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org sid InRelease Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main Sources/DiffIndex [7876 B] Get:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main armhf Packages/DiffIndex [7876 B] Get:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [7876 B] Err http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main armhf Packages Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main armhf Packages Fetched 23.6 kB in 19s (1237 B/s) Reading package lists... Done root@freedombox:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d# echo $? 0 ====== Debug information of apt showing that request is made to Packages.bz2 first and then Packages.xz # apt-get -o Debug::Acquire::http=true update ... ET /debian/dists/sid/main/binary-armhf/Packages.bz2 HTTP/1.1 Host: ftp.us.debian.org Cache-Control: max-age=0 If-Modified-Since: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 14:17:11 GMT User-Agent: Debian APT-HTTP/1.3 (1.0.10.1) Answer for: http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/binary-armhf/Packages.bz2 HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 17:12:58 GMT Server: Apache Content-Length: 312 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Err http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main armhf Packages GET /debian/dists/sid/main/binary-armhf/Packages.xz HTTP/1.1 Host: ftp.us.debian.org Cache-Control: max-age=0 If-Modified-Since: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 14:17:11 GMT User-Agent: Debian APT-HTTP/1.3 (1.0.10.1) Answer for: http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/binary-armhf/Packages.xz HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 17:12:58 GMT Server: Apache ETag: "70cf50-51d09c20b87c0" ... ======= As a work around if I set the following in apt configuration, the problem is fixed. Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "xz"; ======= packagekitd --verbose 17:55:38 PackageKit Verbose debugging enabled (on console 0) 17:55:38 PackageKit daemon shutdown set to 0 seconds 17:55:38 PackageKit clearing download cache at /var/cache/PackageKit/downloads 17:55:39 PackageKit destination eth1 is valid 17:55:39 PackageKit setting config file watch on /etc/PackageKit/PackageKit.conf 17:55:39 PackageKit Trying to load : aptcc 17:55:39 PackageKit dlopening '/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/packagekit-backend/libpk_backend_aptcc.so' 17:55:39 PackageKit trying to open database '/var/lib/PackageKit/transactions.db' 17:55:39 PackageKit job count is now at 111 17:55:39 PackageKit is_default: 1 17:55:39 PackageKit network state is wired 17:55:39 PackageKit PkEngine: acquired name: org.freedesktop.PackageKit 17:55:44 PackageKit CreateTransaction method called 17:55:44 PackageKit job count now 112 17:55:44 PackageKit trying to open database '/var/lib/PackageKit/transactions.db' 17:55:44 PackageKit job count is now at 111 17:55:44 PackageKit transaction now new 17:55:44 PackageKit setting sender to :1.114 17:55:44 PackageKit adding transaction 0xb83a10e0 17:55:44 PackageKit sending object path: '/112_aacacbad' 17:55:44 PackageKit notify::connected 17:55:47 PackageKit SetHints method called: locale=C, background=false, interactive=true, cache-age=4294967295 17:55:47 PackageKit cache-age changed to -1 17:55:47 PackageKit Resolve method called: 2, ikiwiki&gcc&libc6-dev&libtimedate-perl&libcgi-formbuilder-perl&libcgi-session-perl&libxml-writer-perl 17:55:47 PackageKit transaction now ready 17:55:47 PackageKit changing transaction to exclusive mode 17:55:47 PackageKit 1 transactions in list, 1 committed but not finished 17:55:47 PackageKit transaction now running *** 17:55:47 PackageKit failed to get session, errno -6 *** 17:55:47 PackageKit failed to set the session state (non-fatal): failed to get the session 17:55:47 PackageKit setting role for /112_aacacbad to resolve 17:55:48 PackageKit State: 0 resolve /112_aacacbad state[running] exclusive[1] background[0] 17:55:48 PackageKit 1 are running *** 17:55:49 PackageKit percentage value is going down to 0 from 78 *** *** 17:55:49 PackageKit percentage value is going down to 0 from 78 *** 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package installed, gcc;4:5.2.1-4;armhf;unstable, GNU C compiler 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package available, ikiwiki;3.20150614;all;unstable, a wiki compiler 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package installed, libc6-dev;2.19-19;armhf;unstable, GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Header Files 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package available, libcgi-formbuilder-perl;3.09-3;all;unstable, Easily generate and process stateful CGI forms 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package available, libcgi-session-perl;4.48-2;all;unstable, persistent session data in CGI applications 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package installed, libtimedate-perl;2.3000-2;all;unstable, collection of modules to manipulate date/time information 17:55:49 PackageKit emit package available, libxml-writer-perl;0.625-1;all;unstable, Perl module for writing XML documents 17:55:49 PackageKit backend was running for 1506 ms 17:55:49 PackageKit emitting finished 'success', 1506 17:55:49 PackageKit transaction now finished 17:55:49 PackageKit 1 transactions in list, 0 committed but not finished 17:55:49 PackageKit CreateTransaction method called 17:55:49 PackageKit job count now 113 17:55:49 PackageKit trying to open database '/var/lib/PackageKit/transactions.db' 17:55:49 PackageKit job count is now at 112 17:55:49 PackageKit transaction now new 17:55:49 PackageKit setting sender to :1.114 17:55:49 PackageKit adding transaction 0xb83a11d0 17:55:49 PackageKit sending object path: '/113_acbcadca' 17:55:50 PackageKit SetHints method called: locale=C, background=false, interactive=false, cache-age=4294967295 17:55:50 PackageKit cache-age changed to -1 17:55:50 PackageKit RefreshCache method called: 0 17:55:50 PackageKit transaction now waiting-for-auth 17:55:50 PackageKit authorizing action org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-sources-refresh 17:55:50 PackageKit transaction now ready 17:55:50 PackageKit changing transaction to exclusive mode 17:55:50 PackageKit 2 transactions in list, 1 committed but not finished 17:55:50 PackageKit transaction now running *** 17:55:50 PackageKit failed to get session, errno -6 *** 17:55:50 PackageKit failed to set the session state (non-fatal): failed to get the session 17:55:50 PackageKit setting role for /113_acbcadca to refresh-cache *** 17:55:51 PackageKit percentage value is going down to 0 from 75 *** *** 17:55:51 PackageKit percentage value is going down to 0 from 75 *** 17:55:52 PackageKit is_default: 1 17:55:52 PackageKit network state is wired 17:55:52 PackageKit emitting repo-detail , http://ftp.us.debian.org sid InRelease, 1 17:55:54 PackageKit transaction /112_aacacbad completed, removing 17:55:54 PackageKit emitting destroy /112_aacacbad 17:55:58 PackageKit State: 0 refresh-cache /113_acbcadca state[running] exclusive[1] background[0] 17:55:58 PackageKit 1 are running 17:56:00 PackageKit emitting error-code cannot-fetch-sources, 'E: http://ftp.us.debian.org sid/main armhf Packages is not (yet) available () ' 17:56:00 PackageKit backend was running for 10134 ms 17:56:00 PackageKit emitting finished 'failed', 10134 17:56:00 PackageKit transaction now finished 17:56:00 PackageKit 1 transactions in list, 0 committed but not finished 17:56:05 PackageKit transaction /113_acbcadca completed, removing 17:56:05 PackageKit emitting destroy /113_acbcadca 17:56:06 PackageKit Handling SIGINT ====== Version of packagekit (installed from stock Debian unstable) root@freedombox:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d# /usr/lib/packagekit/packagekitd --version Version 1.0.6 ====== Version of Debian package ii packagekit 1.0.6-1+b1 armhf Provides a package management service ====== Debian version (with custom kernel) root@freedombox:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d# uname -a Linux freedombox 3.18.0+ #10 SMP Mon Mar 23 22:44:25 IST 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux root@freedombox:/etc/apt/apt.conf.d# lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Debian Description: Debian GNU/Linux unstable (sid) Release: unstable Codename: sid
On #debian-apt IRC channel, I got a hint about the nature of the problem and possible fix. === Quote === <DonKult> sunilmohan: sorry, no idea about PackageKit, but that looks like it uses the pkgAcquireStatus::Fail method – which is where the Err line comes from in apt-get – and decides based on that if the whole operation failed, while what actually should be done is asking the Fetcher at the end for all items and check if any of them was a failure as even if the download of an item fails, libapt can potentially recover and still get the item successfully some other way. === End quote ===
We moved the upstream bugtracker to GitHub a long time ago. If this issue still affects you please re-create the issue here: https://github.com/hughsie/PackageKit/issues Sorry for the impersonal message, and fingers crossed your issue no longer happens. Thanks.
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