Ubuntu
software-properties package

software-properties adds a non-existant 'web' to the list of repository components

Bug #210002 reported by Jan Claeys
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
software-properties (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

It seems that on some systems 'software-properties' adds a 'web' component to the Ubuntu repositories resulting in errors like the following:

Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/Release Unable to find expected entry web/binary-i386/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)

I'm not sure yet what is causing this (or if it's just keeping an error around that was introduced during the upgrade?).
I see this on my laptop (32-bit) but not on my desktop (64-bit), but I don't think that's relevant?
There are also several questions on ubuntuforums.org and at least one on forum.ubuntu-nl.org about this error message.

Revision history for this message
Jan Claeys (janc) wrote :

Dutch forum threads about this bug:
http://forum.ubuntu-nl.org/topic/19960
http://forum.ubuntu-nl.org/topic/20804

Revision history for this message
Jan Claeys (janc) wrote :

I have done some tests and have read some log files, but I didn't find how this 'web' component got added to the 'sources.list' yet.

The dist-upgrade log doesn't show it:
2008-03-10 00:28:43,047 DEBUG examining: 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted universe multiverse'
2008-03-10 00:28:43,047 DEBUG entry 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted universe multiverse' updated to new dist

And if I remove 'web' manually, it doesn't get re-added when I use (the current version of) software-properties either.
Extra unknown components seem to be preserved by software-properties. (Shouldn't it remove non-existent components?)

Now, I don't have a clue how this 'web' was added to several people's sources.list ...

Revision history for this message
Philippe Piquer (philippep62) wrote :

You can find similar entries on ubuntu-fr forums (http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=221939) and on ubuntuforums (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=742624)....

I think this might be a real treat because if an unknown software can change the sources.list , it can also add suspicious repositories ...

Revision history for this message
Daniel T Chen (crimsun) wrote :

Is this symptom still reproducible in 8.10 or 9.04?

Changed in software-properties:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Jan Claeys (janc) wrote :

Well, considering that nobody knows how that "web" ended up there (although it must have been the result of a bug), it's hard to reproduce that part, except by adding it manually...

About preserving unknown components: that behaviour still exists. Actually, if I add a component named "web" to one official Ubuntu source line, software-properties adds it to the other lines too. I wonder if this behaviour should be considered right or wrong...?

(Tested on an up-to-date 8.10)

Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)
Changed in software-properties (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
Revision history for this message
amichair (amichai2) wrote :

We are closing this bug report because it lacks information on how this happened or how to reproduce it, and it hasn't been reported to occur since 8.04. Fixing corrupt sources.list files is currently outside the scope of software-properties. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information or see it recur in a recent release, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the "Status" column, and change the status back to "New". Thanks again!

Changed in software-properties (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Invalid
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