package-data-downloader does not handle network errors gracefully

[Daniel Richard G.]

This concerns update-notifier-common 0.126 in Ubuntu Quantal.

I got this e-mail message from a system running inside a corporate network that blocks outbound port 80 connections (a proxy is required for Web access):

Subject: Anacron job 'cron.daily' on test-ubuntu64

/etc/cron.daily/update-notifier-common:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader", line 234, in process_download_requests
    dest_file = urllib.urlretrieve(files[i])[0]
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 93, in urlretrieve
    return _urlopener.retrieve(url, filename, reporthook, data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 239, in retrieve
    fp = self.open(url, data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 207, in open
    return getattr(self, name)(url)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib.py", line 344, in open_http
    h.endheaders(data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 958, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 818, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 780, in send
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 761, in connect
    self.timeout, self.source_address)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py", line 571, in create_connection
    raise err
IOError: [Errno socket error] [Errno 111] Connection refused
flashplugin-installer: downloading http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_11.2.202.273.orig.tar.gz

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

Walter Garcia-Fontes, please do not mark this bug as a duplicate of bug 1037662. This bug occurred due to a proxy issue, but it specifically addresses p-d-d's inability to handle network errors in general in a robust way.

[Tharrrk (tharrrk)]

I think this is the same issue as bug 1317920.
Heat is higher there... ;)

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

That bug is about not using the system-configured HTTP proxy; this one is about not handling network errors in general well (Python stack traces are not supposed to be seen by end users). The two are related, but still address distinct issues.