Archive out of date failures don't suggest a clear solution

[Nicholas Skaggs]

When the archive is out of date, autopkgtest will fail to fetch dependencies and setup the environment properly. This can happen in any container, but is quite common when attempting to test ubuntu touch images.

The proper solution to the issue is to update and make sure your container aligns with what is in the archive. In a pinch and for some use cases, using apt-get update can work. However, I would suggest simply changing the error to something meaningful for those encountering it

ERROR: unexpected error: failed to download and unpack test dependencies

Add a line to this that informs the user they can solve this issue by updating the target.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I made the error messages more verbose in:
http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/autopkgtest/autopkgtest.git/commit/?id=45b310250c

Please let me know if you have further suggestions to clarify or shorten this.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package autopkgtest - 3.11.1

---------------
autopkgtest (3.11.1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Fix autopkgtest-reboot to also work when being called through sudo, and
    for forking test scripts.
  * Avoid failure if /var/cache/apparmor/click-ap.rules does not exist any
    more after a reboot, like on snappy.
  * adt-buildvm-ubuntu-cloud: Avoid cloud-init's prerm stopping cloud-init's
    services while we are still running them. This makes it possible to purge
    cloud-init from user-data, and avoids killing apt/dpkg underneath us. This
    needs a cleaner solution, but is a good enough workaround for now.
    (LP: #1427999)
  * adt-buildvm-ubuntu-cloud: Don't wait between serial console reads while
    we have data. Provides faster/smoother output in --verbose mode.
  * ssh-setup/nova: Fix error message on missing keypair, the command is
    "keypair-add", not "keypair-create". Thanks Thomi Richards! (LP: #1428433)
  * adt-buildvm-ubuntu-cloud: Add workaround for recent cloud-init regression
    that disables ssh (LP #1428495)
  * adt-run: Suggest common reason for unsatisfiable test dependencies.
    Suggest using a current image, or run apt-get update/-U (for apt-get) or
    --setup-commands ro-apt-update (for temp dir install mode). (LP: #1425682)
  * Quiesce confusing "failed to create symbolic link
    /sbin/autopkgtest-reboot" warning on read-only testbeds.

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 05 Mar 2015 13:33:12 +0100