Ubuntu – How to fix “-5 No address associated with hostname error” while updating

12.04aptsoftware-sourcesupdates

I am getting this error frequently while updating Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. How can I fix it? Log is:

Ign http://archive.scrapy.org precise/main Translation-en
Fetched 6,620 kB in 1min 21s (81.2 kB/s)
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.scrapy.org/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg
Something wicked happened resolving 'archive.scrapy.org:http' (-5 - No address associated with hostname)

Best Answer

This has been a long term problem with apt, and Ubuntu has never fixed it. Apt doesn't seem to use the same DNS servers that the internal system does - 'ping ' returns a correct IP address. Apt-get claims that the hostname isn't found.

"Something wicked happened resolving 'extras.ubuntu.com:http" (Which sounds, somewhat, like it's trying to resolve a .com:http domain, which isn't a valid TLD)

To modify /etc/hosts, use the following:

Ping each of the names that are failing to resolve - PING extras.ubuntu.com (91.189.88.33) 56(84) bytes of data.

Use your favourite editor, such as vi - 'sudo vi /etc/hosts'.

Scroll down to the end, and add a line such as the following

91.189.88.33 extras.ubuntu.com  (with the appropriate name and IP address. IP is first)

Save the file, then re-run apt-get. Once you've run apt-get, edit /etc/hosts again, and comment out the line with a hash mark - #. (or delete it entirely)

#91.189.88.33 extras.ubuntu.com

The reason to comment out/delete the line is that Ubuntu apparently shuffles their servers around randomly, and that might not be the correct IP the next time.

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