package flashplugin-installer 10.0.22.87ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade over proxy

[MoMaT]

Binary package hint: flashplugin-nonfree

I'm using fresh install of Jaunty Beta with all current updates. I've set a proxy in System -> Preferences -> Network Proxy, as well as in Synaptic and /etc/apt/apt.conf. However when I try to install the non-free flash plugin it stops on the file download as the proxy is not used there.

This might be a duplicate of bug #232469 but I'm not sure as it is against wget and this probably should be solved in flash plugin installer.

== WORKAROUND ==
See comment #9 by jhaig
$ sudo su -
$ apt-get remove flashplugin-installer
$ apt-get install flashplugin-installer

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ErrorMessage: subprocess post-installation script killed by signal (Interrupt)
Package: flashplugin-installer 10.0.22.87ubuntu2
SourcePackage: flashplugin-nonfree
Title: package flashplugin-installer 10.0.22.87ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess post-installation script killed by signal (Interrupt)
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic x86_64

[MoMaT (momat)]

The workaround is to set http_proxy in terminal and then run apt-get upgrade.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

> I've set a proxy in System -> Preferences -> Network Proxy,

after doing this you have to relog-in; only that will set the http_proxy env. Can you confirm that that works?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

also please post what you set in apt.conf (which would be an apt bug imo)

[MoMaT (momat)]

It doesn't work. The $http_proxy is not set and the apt-get is still trying to get flash from port 80.
In apt.conf I have a single line:
Acquire::http::proxy "http://my_proxy:3128/";
and it works for other packages.

[David Haworth (dh-elektrobit)]

I hit this problem too. I tried setting http_proxy from the xterm before launching synaptic with sudo, but sudo discards environment variables. If I'd had my brain in gear I might have tried "sudo su" and then set http_proxy before running synaptic, but I worked around the problem by creating a wrapper script for wget. However, this isn't robust because updates to wget will probably overwrite my script.

My opinion: the proxy that is in the synaptic configuration should be passed to the installer. It should not be necessary to define http_proxy externally, and it might be desirable under some circumstances to use a different proxy for synaptic than for general use (e.g. if a site is running a local mirror of the Ubuntu archives).

Also note: some of the strange "Sound doesn't work properly in Firefox after upgrade" bugs might be caused by this. As a result of the failed download, my upgraded system was still running an old Flash plugin. To try to fix the problem I deinstalled and reinstalled Flash, and that's when I discovered the download was failing.

[riva.dani (riva.dani)]

I hit this problem with Lucid. As suggested by David, the workaround is to set http_proxy as root (sudo su) before running apt.

[kriberg (kriberg)]

Experiencing the same bug in lucid on amd64. Neither the wgetrc which the package creates /var/cache/flashplugin-installer/wgetrc nor the global wget-script at /etc/wgetrc has http_proxy set. Perhaps this parameter should be appended to /etc/wgetrc when wget is installed?

[jhaig (josephhaig)]

I am also seeing this problem and it is very annoying. To clarify what others have said, I found that the workaround is:

$ sudo su -
$ apt-get upgrade

I found that 'sudo apt-get upgrade' doesn't work as it does not seem to pick up the http_proxy setting. Further, if I have accidentally tried to upgrade without switching to root, I have to remove the flashplugin-installer package and then reinstall it:

$ sudo su -
$ apt-get remove flashplugin-installer
$ apt-get install flashplugin-installer

[Keith Kyzivat (kamaji)]

This is a problem with the deb script running wget -- wget does not honor apt's proxy configuration settings, and instead uses the environment variable http_proxy and https_proxy to determine whether and what proxy to use.

I'm not sure if Debs are intelligent enough, but perhaps it's possible for the apt system to provide proxy information to script within .deb packages -- such that they can query for proxy, and then configure the environment that the .deb installer script runs in with http_proxy info provided by apt?

[Berend De Schouwer (berend-de-schouwer)]

This bug means that flash upgrades fail (but are marked successful) so valid, installed but old flash packages are removed, resulting in no flash.

[Andy (biohazd)]

I added the 2 lines to the file /etc/wgetrc :
  http_proxy = http://10.0.0.2:3128/
  ftp_proxy = http://10.0.0.2:3128/

I did a locate for "wgetrc" and found - /var/cache/flashplugin-installer/wgetrc
    So I added those 2 lines in there aswell.

re-running the apt-get upgrade - seemed to then just work.....

[Berend De Schouwer (berend-de-schouwer)]

Still a problem with 10.1.82.76ubuntu2

apt-get upgrade is now trying forever to download a file it cannot reach because it's not using the proxy.

[Eshwar Andhavarapu (eshwar.andhavarapu)]

its a problem with how wget gets its proxy settings when invoked by apt or synaptic, etc. not a problem in the flashplugin package. i have the same problem when wine or b43 firmware is installed as both these packages download tarballs or other files during the installation process.

for now the workaround would be setting http_proxy in /etc/wgetrc

[Ignacio Ramirez (ignacio-ramirez)]

Hi all. Here is a less intrusive solution which I think may help, if you don't want to mess with global options
(or, like me, you switch between different networks with different proxies all day).
Just set the variable "inline" when doing sudo:

sudo http_proxy=http://httpproxy.fing.edu.uy:3128 apt-get install flashplugin-installer

If you, like me, interrupted a previous attempt of installation do:

sudo http_proxy=http://httpproxy.fing.edu.uy:3128 dpkg --configure -a

[Ignacio Ramirez (ignacio-ramirez)]

Of course, change http://httpproxy.fing.edu.uy:3128 to your proxy setting...

[Bartłomiej Żogała (nusch)]

It's not duplicate of #283500. In my case wget itsel work correctly through the proxy, only the settings for flashplugin-installer are lost. I have setup both system proxy, /etc/wgetrc . Only iptables destination NAT with redirect to proxy ip:port helps. But this is not a solution - with one simple rule all internal corporate proxy is also redirected. In other setups PAC file proxy , where there are multiple proxies to access multiple foreign locations it's hard to fix.

[David Haworth (dh-elektrobit)]

Can I make a suggestion:

The flashplugin installer package should use a script instead of wget. The script should dig the proxy setting out of the synaptic preferences file, set http_proxy, then exec wget $*

This is essentially what I've hacked into my system using a redirect script for wget, except that my script just has a hard-coded proxy.

Unfortunately the hack disappears every time a new version of wget appears.

And unfortunately now wget doesn't work for internal servers that aren't proxied, so I have to remember to use wget-original instead.

So it isn't ideal :-(

--
Dave

[goniomdq (jose-goni)]

"Reported by MoMaT on 2009-04-17"

More than 4 years have past and still the issue persist.
I am more than happy to fix this myself if you want to contact me to do so.
Since this is a shell script I would read unity proxy settings with gsettings, use the proxy address and port obtained in there to set the http_proxy variable for the script.

Very easy solution I believe.

Thanks
José