[Bug 1775219] Re: incorrectly reports package as unsupported if apt cache is empty

[Brian Murray]

Here is a previous bug report about this issue.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1217517

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1775219

Title:
  incorrectly reports package as unsupported if apt cache is empty

Status in apport package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Cloud images ship with empty /var/lib/apt/lists/ to save on size.
  Running 'ubuntu-bug <supported_package>' will erroneously report that
  the package is unsupported:

    $ ubuntu-bug coreutils

    *** Collecting problem information

    The collected information can be sent to the developers to improve the
    application. This might take a few minutes.
    .

    *** Problem in coreutils

    The problem cannot be reported:

    This is not an official Ubuntu package. Please remove any third
  party package and try again.

  A simpler recreate is:

  $ python3 -c 'import apport;print(apport.packaging.is_distro_package("coreutils"))'
  False
  $ sudo apt update -qq
  All packages are up to date.
  $ python3 -c 'import apport;print(apport.packaging.is_distro_package("coreutils"))'
  True

  Desired result:

  The message should instruct the user to run 'apt update' as root if
  they think this is in error.   That would improve usability and avoid
  false reports about apport incorrectly flagging a package as
  unsupported.

  Additionally, if the user is root (and optionally if the set of
  package candidates only contains a 'now' component)
  self._cache.update(); self._cache.open() could be called to download
  lists.

  Alternatively it could just check to see if lists have been
  downloaded.

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