add-apt-repository silently fails to add/reactivate a previously commented out PPA

[Moritz Naumann]

I had the xorg-edgers PPA activated on this system, but manually commented it out the other day, ending up with this:

me@mypc:~$ sudo rgrep -Fi edgers /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list.save:# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list.save:# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list:# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list:# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
me@mypc:~$

So I used add-apt-repository to re-add this PPA using "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa". I don't remember the exact output, but there were no obvious errors or warnings reported.

Unfortunately this repository was still disabled, and no new entry for it had been added:
me@mypc:~$ sudo rgrep -Fi edgers /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list.save:# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list.save:# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list:# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-oneiric.list:# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main
me@mypc:~$

My expectation would have been that either a new, non commented, entry would have been added for this PPA, or that I would have received at least a warning saying that this repository was not added because there is already a commented out reference to this PPA in a given file on a given line (or just somewhere within my current APT sources).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: python-software-properties 0.81.13.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-18.31-generic 3.0.26
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-18-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Apr 3 18:25:40 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: software-properties
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-21 (165 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package software-properties - 0.92.5

---------------
software-properties (0.92.5) quantal; urgency=low

  [ Colin Watson ]
  * add-apt-repository:
    - Force output encoding to UTF-8 even in non-UTF-8 locales
      (LP: #1041431).

  [ sampo555 ]
  * Construct the path of a PPA source file properly (LP: #972617, #994515,
    #1018327, #1037916).
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:41:12 +0100