16.04 Software Updater: Failed to download repository information

[rpaskudniak]

Greetings.

I have been absent from this forum for a while but please treat me like a returning runaway. And note how concisely (NOT) I explain my problem.

Last week I reformatted all of my Ubuntu file systems and installed a fresh copy of 16.04. I was able to run a few software updates (discovering that Update Manager is now called "Software Updater") but as of this week, I have a problem: I keep getting the error box telling me:

Failed to download repository information
Check your internet connection

Obviously, there is nothing wrong my internet connection; on on the forum, after all. My first Google search for the message sent me to StackExchange where the problem was blamed on the installation of Google Chrome and referred to release 14.04. But I have not installed Google Chrome. I am using the Ubuntu-packaged Chromium but the file referenced in that forum does not exist for me so those solutions were useless.

There have been several suggestion to run sudo apt-get update at the terminal. But that had a few failures. While the entire output of that command is attached, I wanted to include the error lines here:

Ign:14 http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexeftimie/ppa/ubuntu xenial/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons
Err:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexeftimie/ppa/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
404 Not Found
Err:9 http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexeftimie/ppa/ubuntu xenial/main i386 Packages
404 Not Found

OK, so I restarted the Updater, went to Settings and unchecked the alexeftimie entry. No help; it did the check again and still zapped me. What's more, a small box keeps teasing me that updates are available but it vanishes when I try to hover the mouse thereon.

Where do I from here to get those *&^%! updates?

Thanks much!

[howefield]

Probably because there are no xenial repositories for the ppa(s) that is causing the problem.

Can you post the output of

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

and

ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

[rpaskudniak]

Howefield,
Thanks for taking this up.

$ ls -ld /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 136 May 18 12:44 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/alexeftimie-ubuntu-ppa-xenial.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 134 May 18 12:44 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/alexeftimie-ubuntu-ppa-xenial.list.save
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 170 May 18 12:44 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/danielrichter2007-ubuntu-grub-customizer-xenial.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 170 May 18 12:44 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/danielrichter2007-ubuntu-grub-customizer-xenial.list.save

I tried to attach /etc/apt/sources.list but the forum software calls it an invalid file. (I suppose it does not like the .list suffix.) So (sigh) here it is. Thanks again.

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 16.04 LTS _Xenial Xerus_ - Release amd64 (20160420.1)]/ xenial main restricted

# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.
deb http://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu/ xenial main universe restricted multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates main universe restricted multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-updates main restricted

## 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
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial universe
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-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-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-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://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu/ xenial-backports main universe restricted multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-backports main restricted universe 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 xenial partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner

deb http://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/ubuntu/ xenial-security main universe restricted multiverse
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security universe
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security multiverse

[howefield]

I would suggest removing the alexeftimie-ubuntu-ppa entries in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/alexeftimie-ubuntu-ppa-xenial.list* ~/Documents

and then try to update..

sudo apt update

[slickymaster]

howefield is right, ppa:alexeftimie last version published was for Raring Ringtail.

[rpaskudniak]

Howefield and Slickymaster (with the scary pic )

It appears that just unchecking it was enough. When I reran the Updater from scratch (rather than letting it run a re-check) the error stopped happening and I got the message that all my software is up to date. And I haven't seen that elusive phantom "updates available" box in the past hour. (I wouldn't exactly call that fixed, after only an hour...)

Still, I created a trash folder in /etc/apt/sources.list.d moved the alexeftimie files in there.

Thanks much, folks.

Now how do I mark this solved?

[howefield]

It appears that just unchecking it was enough. When I reran the Updater from scratch (rather than letting it run a re-check) the error stopped happening and I got the message that all my software is up to date.

Great. Well done

And I haven't seen that elusive phantom "updates available" box in the past hour.

Not sure you'll find it solved, next time it happens and software updater tells you that you are up to date, try doing it from terminal. You may find some updates still waiting that way.

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Now how do I mark this solved?

Thread Tools at top of the page to mark as solved.