Problems with Updates & Software, add-apt-repository and "Can't find a source ..."

[braneludio]

Hi guys,

Well as one guy said "I know I shouldn't have done it, but I did it anyway ..." I installed different DE-s on my 14.04.2 Ubuntu including: gnome-shell, kde, xubuntu, mate, cinammon, awesome, i3wm and pantheon. This messed up my unity (mainly kde and pantheon which required gnome3 ppas), so I wanted to get back to unity and had to downgrade a lot of installed stuff using aptitude build-dep ...

So far I've managed to get back almost to square 1 (after 2 months of fun : ) but there are a couple of things left to fix:

1. I can't start Software and Updates
I tried reinstalling but I get:

$ sudo aptitude reinstall update-manager
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
  update-manager 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
E: Can't find a source to download version '1:0.196.13' of 'update-manager:amd64'
E: Can't find a source to download version '1:0.196.13' of 'update-manager:amd64'
E: Internal error: couldn't generate list of packages to download

I also tried reinstalling python3-apt but I get:

$ sudo aptitude reinstall python3-apt
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
  python3-apt 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
E: Can't find a source to download version '0.9.3.5+elementary4~ubuntu0.3.1' of 'python3-apt:amd64'
E: Can't find a source to download version '0.9.3.5+elementary4~ubuntu0.3.1' of 'python3-apt:amd64'
E: Internal error: couldn't generate list of packages to download

2. I can't add repositories using add-apt-repository
I get this:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:conky-companions/ppa 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/add-apt-repository", line 91, in <module>
    sp = SoftwareProperties(options=options)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py", line 109, in __init__
    self.reload_sourceslist()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py", line 599, in reload_sourceslist
    self.distro.get_sources(self.sourceslist)    
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/aptsources/distro.py", line 89, in get_sources
    (self.id, self.codename))
aptsources.distro.NoDistroTemplateException: Error: could not find a distribution template for Ubuntu/n/a

3. my power indicator doesn't refresh
I tried reinstalling but also get

$ sudo aptitude reinstall gnome-power-manager 
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
  gnome-power-manager 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
E: Can't find a source to download version '3.8.2-1ubuntu3~trusty1.1' of 'gnome-power-manager:amd64'
E: Can't find a source to download version '3.8.2-1ubuntu3~trusty1.1' of 'gnome-power-manager:amd64'
E: Internal error: couldn't generate list of packages to download

I dunno if it's all connected - but I sure don't want to do a clean install because of all the stuff I need to redo ... help?

Branko

[v3.xx]

E: Can't find a source

Whats in your sources list?

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

[braneludio]

Yeah I tried resetting my source.list after purging some of the packages didn't finish nice and tidy. The thing is I wanted to purge all this new ppas that i added but some of them wanted to remove ubuntu-desktop and I thought "well that doesn't sound good" (now I know I'm wrong : ) so I stopped the purging midway.

Anyway to get a nice and fresh source.list I used http://repogen.simplylinux.ch/ to get the list bellow. I also emptied /etc/apt/sources.list.d completely. I don't know where elementaryos still stands a source for some of the bins ..

# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS _Trusty Tahr_ - Release amd64 (20140722.2)]/ trusty main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted
## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates main restricted
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates universe
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu 
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to 
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in 
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates multiverse

## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu trusty partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu trusty partner

## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party
## developers who want to ship their latest software.
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ trusty partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ trusty partner
deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main

# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-severinsson/ffmpeg/ubuntu trusty main

# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ trusty partner
deb http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot all main
# deb-src http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot all main

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu trusty main 
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu trusty main 

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gurqn/systray-trusty/ubuntu trusty main 
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gurqn/systray-trusty/ubuntu trusty main 

# Conky
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/teejee2008/ppa/ubuntu trusty main

[v3.xx]

Why do you have your ppa's in your sources.list and not in sources.list.d?

Please run a update in terminal and look for errors. If the ppas come up in error, comment out (#) the offending ppa in the sources list for now. Did you install these ppa using apt-add-repository at some point?

Is all this conflict being cause by an version upgrade to 14o4?

You run a lot of environments. The only one that would concern me would be gnome-shell. I do not run it myself, but have read reports of it (at times), not playing nice with other desktops.

[braneludio]

I added all of these directly in the sources.list, actually all of them except the last 3: deb xorg-edgers, systray-trusty and Conky were generated by http://repogen.simplylinux.ch/. Adding stuff using add-apt-repository doesn't work any more. I cleared sources.list.d/ because I couldn't figure out why ubuntu can't find the sources to reinstall the stuff that's not working. Otherwise, apt-get update doesn't give any errors except a GPG error because I didn't add the keys for the last repo-s.

I think the biggest trouble came when I was trying to install Pantheon DE. This necessitated adding gnome-3 ppa's, so maybe you're right with the gnome-shell thing.

Cheers,
Branko

[QIII]

@braneludio:

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