ttf-mscorefonts-installer 404 errors

[Chai T. Rex]

Ubuntu version
==============

Description: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
Release: 16.04

Package information
===================

ttf-mscorefonts-installer:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.4+nmu1ubuntu2
  Version table:
     3.4+nmu1ubuntu2 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/multiverse amd64 Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/multiverse i386 Packages

What happens
============

The servers that the `ttf-mscorefonts-installer` package uses to download the fonts are messed up:

Preparing to unpack .../ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.4+nmu1ubuntu2_all.deb ...
mscorefonts-eula license has already been accepted
Unpacking ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) over (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (3.168.2) ...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: processing...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
Err:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
  404 Not Found
E: Failed to fetch https://pilotfiber.dl.sourceforge.net/project/corefonts/the fonts/final/andale32.exe 404 Not Found

E: Download Failed
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) ...

This sort of thing happens repeatedly. Sometimes the first font or two will download, but there's always one that fails.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: ttf-mscorefonts-installer (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-57.78-generic 4.4.35
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-57-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Dec 28 03:26:10 2016
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
 # This is a distribution channel descriptor
 # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
 canonical-oem-somerville-xenial-amd64-20160624-2
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-11-01 (57 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20160624-10:47
SourcePackage: msttcorefonts
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[KsmoinO (ksmoino)]

Same issue for me

As workaround, I have edited my /usr/share/package-data-downloads/ttf-mscorefonts-installer file and replace http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts with https://<MIRROR>/project/corefonts/the%20fonts/final for each components.
where <MIRROR> is my sourceforge mirror default server.

I replaced the white space with %20

Example : if you mirror is https://pilotfiber.dl.sourceforge.net you can replace http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts with https://pilotfiber.dl.sourceforge.net/project/corefonts/the%20fonts/final

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Roger Peartree (pereiradorogerio)]

This is exactly the bug that affects me as well but in my case it has an almost hourly annoyance: I get a pop-up from Xubuntu 16.04.1 x64 telling me that ttf-mscorefonts-installer isn't installed correctly and with 2 choice boxes: "run this action now" (which will fail) and "cancel" (which will rid you of the pop-up, that is, until it shows back up again (it will be sooner than you really want, trust me!). I added a screenshot of the pop-up. Then after I did "sudo apt purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer", I try to reinstall the package. The EULA screen appears, you accept it and then this happens:

<code>The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 29,5 kB of archives.
After this operation, 134 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://pt.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/multiverse amd64 ttf-mscorefonts-installer all 3.4+nmu1ubuntu2 [29,5 kB]
Fetched 29,5 kB in 0s (209 kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package ttf-mscorefonts-installer.
(Reading database ... 169324 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.4+nmu1ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Unpacking ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (3.168.2) ...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: processing...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
Err:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
  404 Not Found
W: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/andale32.exe' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied)
E: Failed to fetch https://freefr.dl.sourceforge.net/project/corefonts/the fonts/final/andale32.exe 404 Not Found

E: Download Failed
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) ...<code>

The only font that gets installed is "arial32.exe".
As a temporary solution I will try the workaround that KsmoinO (ksmoino) graciously left here. Many thanks for that! Best regards,

Roger Peartree