Bug#187733: dselect: doesn't update package list if an index file failes to download

[libiko <libiko@gmx.at>]

Package: dselect
Version: 1.10.9
Severity: normal

When invoking 'dselect update' (or '[U]pdate' in dselect main menu) and
an index file failes to download, the package database of apt-get seems
to be correctly updated, but dselect doesn't update it's package list.

example:
--------
...
Hit http://gd.tuwien.ac.at testing/non-US/contrib Release
Err http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be unstable/ Packages                   
  404 Not Found
Hit http://deb.opera.com testing/non-free Packages
...
Ign http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be unstable/ Release
Failed to fetch http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~mleeman/debian/unstable/Packages  404 Not Found
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Update available list script returned error exit status 1.
Press <enter> to continue.
--------

after doing this, 'apt-get upgrade' or 'dselect install' does install
updated packages, but 'dselect select' doesn't show any new or updated
packages.

I consider the "they have been ignored, or old ones used instead" line
to be an output of apt-get, which is invoked by dselect!?
It would be nice if dselect also uses old (or ignore) indexes if new
ones can't be downloaded, in the same way apt-get does.

best regards

-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux okibil 2.4.20-k7 #1 Sat Mar 15 20:25:58 CET 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_AT@euro

Versions of packages dselect depends on:
ii  libc6                     2.3.1-16       GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libncurses5               5.3.20021109-2 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2    1:2.95.4-17    The GNU stdc++ library