Bug#954343: Error message 'Unable to parse package file (1)' unhelpful

[Andras Korn <korn-debbugs@elan.rulez.org>]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 10:34:24AM +0100, David Kalnischkies wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 03:41:06PM +0100, Andras Korn wrote:
> > with the sources.list entry:
> > 
> > deb http://winswitch.org/beta/ buster main
> 
> While the error message certainly doesn't help much, I have to highlight
> that this repository is currently broken. Looks like a mistake in their
> transition from python2 to python3 guessing by all the "b'…'" currently in
> https://winswitch.org/beta/buster/Release
> 
> apt refuses such a Release file by default as insecure (missing Date,
> missing all hashes, … due to the incorrect field names), have you
> perhaps forced it to go along anyhow?

I did.

I don't doubt that the repository is broken (even though it happens to work
with older apt); I think the messages apt prints for broken repositories
should make it easier to diagnose the problem.

In this case, apt did complain about weak security (I don't have the exact
wording anymore, and the repository seems fixed), but that's not so unusual
for 3rd party repositories.

Best regards,

András

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