Aptitude 0.8.3 (yakkety) hangs indefinitely after package list update

[John Zaitseff]

Aptitude 0.8.3 (as available in Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak) hangs indefinitely after the package list is updated. The "Loading cache" box appears in the middle of the screen, but nothing else happens: the standard package display does NOT come up.

The interface is still responsive, however: pressing "q" will allow the user to quit aptitude. Selecting "Cancel pending actions" from the Actions menu also brings back the package list, but I am not sure whether the package lists are updated in this case.

Further debugging shows that this issue only comes up if an error occurs during package list download. In particular, having the following lines in /etc/apt/sources.list is enough to trigger the bug:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu yakkety main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu yakkety main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu yakkety main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu yakkety main

After pressing "u", the List Update tab shows:

http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu yakkety Release [ERROR]
 404 Not Found
http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu yakkety Release [ERROR]
 404 Not Found

as well as a dialog box "Some files were not downloaded successfully." Pressing Continue then triggers the bug (package display does not come up, hanging in "Loading cache").

Previous versions of aptitude (0.7.4, as per Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus) showed the 404 messages and a dialog box:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│W: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu xenial ▒│
│ Release' does not have a Release file. ▒│
│ [ Ok ] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Clicking Ok would then bring up the package display, with an additional dialog box:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│W: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu xenial ▒│
│ Release' does not have a Release file. ▒│
│W: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore ▒│
│ potentially dangerous to use. ▒│
│W: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration ▒│
│ details. ▒│
│W: Failed to fetch ▒│
│ http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu/dists/xenial/main/source/S▒│
│ ources: 404 Not Found ▒│
│E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones ▒│
│ used instead. ▒│
│ [ Ok ] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

This is correct behaviour. The new version's behaviour (hanging) is a bug.

Thanks!

[mrvanes (mrvanes)]

This bug is said to be fixed upstream in aptitude 0.8.4-1 december last year, but didn't make it into Zesty. Why!?
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=834790#116

[mrvanes (mrvanes)]

It's fixed for me in 18.04. Thx!

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Zesty had aptitude 0.8.3-1ubuntu4 so did not receive fix
Fixed in bionic 0.8.10-6ubuntu1 as confirmed by mrvanes
Closing by marking "Fix Released"