[Bug 2039411] Re: Addition of ppa repository failing intermittently

[Oleg Grenrus]

I facing this issue while doing just

    apt-add-repository -y 'ppa:hvr/ghc'

i.e. no `/ubungu` nor tilde. This is on Ubuntu 18.06, so maybe it's old
apt-add-repository which does some rewriting?

E.g. in fresh buildpack-deps:bionic Docker container this fails 100% of
the time

    apt-get update
    apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends gnupg ca-certificates dirmngr curl git software-properties-common libtinfo5
    apt-add-repository -y 'ppa:hvr/ghc'

Either with JSONDecodeError or with "Cannot add PPA:
'ppa:~hvr/ubuntu/ghc'."

EDIT: seems to work on focal.

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Title:
  Addition of ppa repository failing intermittently

Status in software-properties package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  I get following error intermittently when trying to add ppa repository:
  $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:~longsleep/ubuntu/golang-backports
  Cannot add PPA: 'ppa:~longsleep/ubuntu/golang-backports'.
  The user named '~longsleep' has no PPA named 'ubuntu/golang-backports'
  Please choose from the following available PPAs:
   * 'bcmwl':  bcmwl
   * 'couchdb':  Apache CouchDB
   * 'couchdb-precise-backport':  Apache CouchDB with Erlang 18 for precise
   * 'createrepo-backports':  Createrepo Backports
   * 'firehol-backports':  Firehol Backports
   * 'golang-backports':  Golang Backports
   * 'golang-backports-dev':  Golang Backports Dev
   * 'iridium-browser-dev':  Iridium Browser Dev dependencies
   * 'pixel-extras':  Pixel extras
   * 'python2.7-backports':  Python 2.7 Backports
   * 'python3-m2crypto-backports':  Python 3 M2Crypto backports
   * 'stuff':  Stuff
   * 'ubuntu-pine64-flavour-makers':  Ubuntu Pine64 Makers PPA

  After multiple attempts, it may succeed, but the same above command sometimes may return following error as well (intermittently):
  $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:~longsleep/ubuntu/golang-backports
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/bin/add-apt-repository", line 137, in <module>
      shortcut = shortcut_handler(line)
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py", line 885, in shortcut_handler
      ret = factory(shortcut)
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 469, in shortcut_handler
      return PPAShortcutHandler(shortcut)
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 426, in __init__
      info = get_ppa_info(self.shortcut)
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 392, in get_ppa_info
      _get_suggested_ppa_message(user, ppa))
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 349, in _get_suggested_ppa_message
      lp_user = get_info_from_lp(LAUNCHPAD_USER_API % user)
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 104, in get_info_from_lp
      return get_info_from_https(lp_url, True)
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 98, in get_info_from_https
      return json.loads(data)
    File "/usr/lib/python3.8/json/__init__.py", line 357, in loads
      return _default_decoder.decode(s)
    File "/usr/lib/python3.8/json/decoder.py", line 337, in decode
      obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
    File "/usr/lib/python3.8/json/decoder.py", line 355, in raw_decode
      raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
  json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

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