Bug#1078608: apt update silently leaves old index data

Le 17/04/25 à 22:59, David Kalnischkies a écrit :
> Am Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 11:23:03AM +0200, schrieb Laurent Bigonville:
>> On Tue, 13 Aug 2024 19:57:58 +0200 Sven Bartscher<[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>> for a while I've been having the problem with `apt update` that it
>>> pretends to complete successfully, but it didn't actually pull updated
>>> index data. I run it like this:
>>>
>>> $ sudo apt-get update
>>> [sudo] Passwort für sven:
>>> OK:1https://deb.debian.org/debian testing InRelease
>>> OK:2https://deb.debian.org/debian unstable InRelease
>>> OK:3https://deb.debian.org/debian experimental InRelease
>>> OK:4https://deb.debian.org/debian-debug testing-debug InRelease
>>> OK:5https://deb.debian.org/debian-debug unstable-debug InRelease
>>> OK:6https://deb.debian.org/debian-debug experimental-debug InRelease
>>> Paketlisten werden gelesen… Fertig
>> I do have the same issue
> You have what issue?
>
> Some people have that "same issue" by incorrectly copying/restoring the
> lists/ directory. Is that your issue?

The fact that the indexes are not updated when running "apt-get update" 
meaning that apt is not seeing the updates leaving my machine not 
up-to-date.

I didn't manipulate the indexes by hand in any ways before to that.

> [...]
>
> The interesting thing to discover now is what happened in these 24 hours
> on your system that lists/ got a new Release file (or, well InRelease),
> but not new indexes… unsurprisingly that shouldn't happen, but so far
> nobody has provided any leads as people notice only after the fact and
> at that point any debugging is pointless.

It's a laptop with a desktop environment and PackageKit is installed, 
not sure whether PK could impact this. Also the laptop has been probably 
restarted in between so that means that PK has restarted and probably 
tried to update the indexes.


> [...]
>
>
>> severity 1078608 serious
> Not that it makes any practical difference in the apt team if you tag
> it wishlist or critical, but I am curious: Which section in the Debian
> policy is apt violating here? Or have I just missed you joining the
> apt team and/or Debian Release team?
> (Seehttps://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#severities)
> Some maintainers can get really angry if you use the wrong severities,
> so ideally, next time, you should give a justification at least.

Serious severity is:

>     is a severe violation of Debian policy (roughly, it violates a
>     "must" or "required" directive), or, in the package maintainer's
>     or release manager's opinion, makes the package unsuitable for
>     release. 

In my opinion, having trouble to update a system makes apt "unsuitable 
for release". And marking it "serious" makes this visible to the release 
manager team. But if you, as a maintainer, believe that apt can be 
shipped in the next stable version of debian with that bug open, please 
tell me and I'll reduce the severity.

I personally get "really angry" if I have packages (with potential 
security issues) not being timely updated, everybody has their quirk I 
guess...