Cannot access SIL repository for Ubuntu 18.04

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1

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to set up access to the SIL repository on my Ubuntu Linux (18.04) laptop. I followed the instructions given at the package installation website (http packages dot sil dot org):

wget http://packages.sil.org/sil.gpg
sudo apt-key add sil.gpg
sudo apt-add-repository "deb http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main"
sudo apt-get update

The result was the following error messages:

Get:10 http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu bionic/main i386 Packages [22.1 kB]
Get:11 http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages [22.1 kB]
Get:12 http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2,684 B]
Get:13 http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu bionic/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons [41.6 kB]
Err:12 http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata
  Hash Sum mismatch
  Hashes of expected file:
   - Filesize:4235 [weak]
   - SHA256:1d02211d57f4845bb0b32fed81502edd04e9607c9e2db49b7c2d3719424864d9
   - SHA1:8474b17ba2a619d5213e82ecd5ac3f8d42496c3d [weak]
   - MD5Sum:ff9d8ce4c4e4d76dd09fd2612a2238a5 [weak]
  Hashes of received file:
   - SHA256:9b134cfb2455ab5ce6c31fa7c4be5cc7c26a29937c169a54c07b8eefd45f96d6
   - SHA1:d46f8db8469f66d2f84c6481489f161846090d0a [weak]
   - MD5Sum:d09efac51cbc2b0213a8060d87018892 [weak]
   - Filesize:9205 [weak]
  Last modification reported: Tue, 17 Jul 2018 07:39:03 +0000
  Release file created at: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:46:22 +0000
Err:13 http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu bionic/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons
  
Fetched 107 kB in 1s (72.3 kB/s)                        
Reading package lists... Done
E: Failed to fetch store:/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/packages.sil.org_ubuntu_dists_bionic_main_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.xz  Hash Sum mismatch
   Hashes of expected file:
    - Filesize:4235 [weak]
    - SHA256:1d02211d57f4845bb0b32fed81502edd04e9607c9e2db49b7c2d3719424864d9
    - SHA1:8474b17ba2a619d5213e82ecd5ac3f8d42496c3d [weak]
    - MD5Sum:ff9d8ce4c4e4d76dd09fd2612a2238a5 [weak]
   Hashes of received file:
    - SHA256:9b134cfb2455ab5ce6c31fa7c4be5cc7c26a29937c169a54c07b8eefd45f96d6
    - SHA1:d46f8db8469f66d2f84c6481489f161846090d0a [weak]
    - MD5Sum:d09efac51cbc2b0213a8060d87018892 [weak]
    - Filesize:9205 [weak]
   Last modification reported: Tue, 17 Jul 2018 07:39:03 +0000
   Release file created at: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:46:22 +0000
E: Failed to fetch store:/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/packages.sil.org_ubuntu_dists_bionic_main_dep11_icons-64x64.tar.gz  
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
2

The mismatch error might be due to an agressive proxy server / firewall on your network.

You can try to add the following configuration items to apt to see if it helps:

create a file named 99fixbadproxy in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/:
sudo gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99fixbadproxy

Paste the following into 99fixbadproxy and save it:
Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth 0;
Acquire::http::No-Cache true;
Acquire::BrokenProxy true;

Now run the clean (to get rid of previously downloaded files, included those who might not be complete) then update command and see how it goes:
sudo apt clean
sudo apt update

3

This issue has been reported by multiple people in different forums. We are still waiting to hear back from those who are maintaining the Linux repo.

Here was a work-around reported on the LinuxUser email distribution list:

I copied the SIL repository files out of /var/lib/apt/partial to /var/lib/apt. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything since it was just the icon files and dep11. Then ran an update and it didn’t complain anymore. Installed paratext and it installed fine.

I guess it would be easy enough to test again by deleting the sil repository files from /var/lib/apt and doing an update, but my internet is horrible and I wouldn’t know who to report it to anyways if it was still broke.

4

Thanks for your suggestion. Had no effect, though :-). I guess it’s probably not a proxy issue, since the same problem exists on two different networks/machines.

5

Thanks for that.

I had a look at the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/partial (I think that’s what he’s referring to, since there’s no /var/lib/apt/partial directory on my machine), but I don’t know enough about how apt works to be sure I’d be doing something safe by copying them across as suggested. I don’t have access to the Linux Users group, so I can’t find out more from that source at the moment.

Might be better to wait for advice from the repo maintainers, I guess.

6

@Matthew_Moppett, I tried this in a virtual machine. As root, I was able to copy the files from /var/lib/apt/lists/partial to /var/lib/apt/lists and was able to install apps from the SIL repository.

I just heard from someone who will be looking at this today.

1 Like
7

As of today (8 August), the SIL repository for Ubuntu is working normally again.