Debian – How to fix “apt-get install -f apt-transport-https” error: 404 Not Found

aptdebdebianpackage-management

We have a pair of load balanced managed VMs which install apt-transport-https as part of a startup script.

However recently the servers went into an error state because on startup they could no longer download the version of the package required (1.0.9.8.3) because it is no longer present on the mirror: http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apt

root@validator-dev-group-c2v4:/etc# apt-get install -f apt-transport-https
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  apt-transport-https
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 27 not upgraded.
Need to get 138 kB of archives.
After this operation, 195 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Err http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main apt-transport-https amd64 1.0.9.8.3
  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apt/apt-transport-https_1.0.9.8.3_amd64.deb  404  Not Found
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

Trying the suggestion of --fix-missing does not help.

root@validator-dev-group-c2v4:/etc# apt-get install --fix-missing apt-transport-https
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  apt-transport-https
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 27 not upgraded.
Need to get 138 kB of archives.
After this operation, 195 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Err http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main apt-transport-https amd64 1.0.9.8.3
  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apt/apt-transport-https_1.0.9.8.3_amd64.deb  404  Not Found
E: Internal Error, ordering was unable to handle the media swap

Next I manually downloaded the higher version of apt-transport-https (1.0.9.8.4) bug I was unable to install it directly because of a dependency on libapt-pkg4.12.

root@validator-dev-group-c2v4:/home/<user># sudo dpkg -i ./apt-transport-https_1.0.9.8.4_amd64.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package apt-transport-https.
(Reading database ... 26719 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../apt-transport-https_1.0.9.8.4_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking apt-transport-https (1.0.9.8.4) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of apt-transport-https:
 apt-transport-https depends on libapt-pkg4.12 (>= 1.0.9.8.4); however:
  Version of libapt-pkg4.12:amd64 on system is 1.0.9.8.3.

Can anyone help me resolve this problem? Is it as simple as upgrading libapt-pkg4.12? If so, how do I go about that?

EDIT: Also I am unable to run apt-get update … because I haven't got apt-transport-https installed. Which I think they call Catch-22!

root@validator-dev-group-c2v4:/home/<user># apt-get update
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found.
N: Is the package apt-transport-https installed?

This is what my /etc/apt/sources.list looks like:

deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main
deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main

Thank you in advance

Best Answer

I appear to have fixed the issue by symlinking the https dir in /usr/lib/apt/methods to the http dir.

root@validator-dev-group-c2v4:~# cd /usr/lib/apt/methods
root@validator-dev-group-c2v4:/usr/lib/apt/methods# ln -s http https

Since I don't actually have any https:// sources configured it seems harmless and then when apt-get install apt-transport-https runs it actually overwrites the symlink with the correct files.

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Debian – Trouble migrating from Yum to apt-get

About your requirements, Iceweasel is the supported Firefox derivative (fork), I'm currently running debian as my desktop OS at work and use iceweasel every day, no problem. Gnome3, I think it'll be available on the next stable release, BTW what release are you running? Squeeze? If so I think (IIRC) Wheezy will have it. And finally, about graphics performance/quality, that depends a lot on your graphics card and its driver, but if you think of it like having transparencies, windows closing with fancy effects and so on, you'll need a moderm desktop or compiz (work with gnome2) which I think its available on stable (wheeze).

I have modified a bit your sources.list for wheeze, do you mind to test it and report back?

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze contrib non-free main
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main

deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main non-free contrib
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/updates main

# squeeze-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/debian/ squeeze-updates main non-free contrib
deb-src http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/debian/ squeeze-updates main non-free contrib

# 3rd party repositories
deb http://packages.dotdeb.org squeeze all
deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org squeeze all
deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

If you happen to be using wheezy or sid you'll have to change all squeeze ocurrences for the one you're using.

Please, backup your sources.list before replacing it, then test it as follows:

Refresh caches

# apt-get update

Search package

# apt-cache vlc

Install package

# apt-get install <package_name>

If find trouble, please report back with output for those three commands, or at least for the first and last.

Also, if you are already using Wheezy or sid, forget what I said about Gnome3 not being available, it should be there but wheezy is yet to be release and sid is always the development branch.

Debian – Understanding Apt Pinning Priority Restrictions

I don't understand why you are doing here. Why do you have a preferences setting for stable at all if you are running a stable system? As far I know, no preferences setting is necessary for stable in that case.

You don't explicitly say whether you are running a stable system (you really should say so), but if you are not, then I really have no idea what you are doing.

And if the release is on stable, then the usual thing to do for testing and unstable is to set their preferences to less than 100. I usually use 50.

And if you want to downgrade to stable, just do the following (assuming sane settings like the ones above) to downgrade pkgname1 and pkgname2:

apt-get install pkgname1/stable pkgname2/stable

This sets the specified packages to the target release stable.

Incidentally, mixing testing and/or unstable packages with an unstable system is generally a bad idea unless you know what you are doing. Some of the time it is Ok, but most of the time you need to use backports, either from Debian, or self-made.

Best Answer

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Debian – Trouble migrating from Yum to apt-get

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