[Aptitude-devel] Bug#834790: aptitude hangs at "Loading cache" when unable to download package list

[Marc Donges]

Hi!

I have the same problem with a different underlying cause, a Release
file with a correct signature but an invalid date.

Updating the package list interactively shows no problems but hangs at
"Loading cache".

When updating the package list noninteractively via "aptitude update"
the problem is shown (URLs obfuscated for privacy reasons):

root at cindy:~# apt-get update
Ign:1 AAA wheezy InRelease
Ign:2 BBB jessie InRelease               
Hit:4 BBB stretch InRelease              
Hit:5 BBB sid InRelease
Hit:6 BBB jessie-updates InRelease
Hit:7 BBB stretch-updates InRelease
Hit:8 BBB jessie
Release                                                                          

Get:3 AAA wheezy Release [2612
B]                                                                          

Get:9 AAA wheezy Release.gpg [836
B]                                                 
Ign:10 CCC sid InRelease                                          
Hit:11 CCC sid Release
Hit:12 DDD stable InRelease
Hit:13 EEE jessie/updates InRelease                                       
Hit:14 EEE stretch/updates InRelease                                      
Get:16 AAA wheezy/main amd64 Packages [1345 B]
Get:17 AAA wheezy/main i386 Packages [1345 B]                              
Hit:19 FFF jessie InRelease
Fetched 6138 B in 2s (2857 B/s)
Reading package lists... Done
W: Invalid 'Date' entry in Release file
/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/aaa_dists_wheezy_Release
W: The repository 'AAA wheezy Release' provides only weak security
information.
N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore
potentially dangerous to use.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user
configuration details.

The workaround is to simply update the package list noninteractively via
"aptitude update" and then use aptitude interactively but not update the
package list there.

Unfortunately I cannot share these files publicly.

The invalid date entry in the Release file is:

Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:23:31 CEST
Valid-Until: Tue, 30 Nov 2038 00:00:00 JST

Of course in this case it's a repository bug, still, the behavior of
aptitude could be more graceful.

Cheers
Marc