Ubuntu
update-manager package

Mirror archives time out or are very slow

Bug #227433 reported by Amgine on 2008-05-06

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	update-manager (Ubuntu)	Invalid	Low	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: update-manager

As usual when trying to avoid using main repository, the Canadian repo times out all over the place and things explode.

Revision history for this message

Amgine (amgine-saewyc) wrote on 2008-05-06:

Most everything timed out during 7.x -> 8.x update Edit (2.6 KiB, text/plain)

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Eastpole (tai-eastpole) wrote on 2008-05-06:

It's also breaking most attempts to upgrade Thunderbird, today's security issue.
I'm quite frightened!

I can say that I have OK IP connectivity to the server, so there could be a problem with the server daemon.

$ ping -c 25 ca.archive.ubuntu.com
PING mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (129.97.134.71) 56(84) bytes of data.
[...]
mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca ping statistics ---
25 packets transmitted, 24 received, 4% packet loss, time 28100ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 32.298/83.424/576.918/123.493 ms

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C de-Avillez (hggdh2) wrote on 2008-09-25:

Thank you for reporting this bug and helping make Ubuntu better. This sounds more like the CA server is overloaded (as may happen with the main server as well). This may happen during major releases, and it is usually outside our control (a mirror is, most of the times, a voluntary service).

You may bypass this issue by:

1a. right-clicking (for me, being left-handed, it would be left-clicking ;-) on the Update Manager Icon on the notification area and selecting "Preferences", or
1b. running Synaptic (the package Manager), and selecting "Settings/Repositories"
2. on the "Download from", click on the down arrow, and select "Other"
3. instead of selecting a specific server, click on "Select Best Server".

The program will now perform a quick test to find the server with the best response time, and will set the repositories to use it, highlighting the selected server.

4. Now click on "Choose Server", and then click on "Close".
5. You will receive a pop-up stating the repositories have changed, and that you should reload them. Do it.
6. Now try to apply the updates. It should be better now.

Although a bit on the painful side, this should be done whenever you find a slow mirror: you will get the updates faster, and you will also help distribute the load.

I am closing this bug invalid. Please feel free to reopen if you do not agree with my position.