[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu 10.04 - failing to retrieve packages from server when installing/updating software

[Rob Beard]

On 24/07/10 23:43, David King wrote:
> When trying to update or add software to my Ubuntu 10.04 (AMD64)
> installation (which is installed within Virtual Box), I am getting error
> messages stating that some files could not be retrieved from the server.
>
> Are any Ubuntu 10.04 servers down? Or is there a setting that needs to
> be changed or a repository that might be missing?
>
> This has only happened today, and not before. Firstly when doing an
> update via Update Manager. One of the programs was Firefox 3.6.6,
> although my Ubuntu 9.04 was able to download and update Firefox
> yesterday okay.
>
> And when trying to add some new software, I get the same error.
>
>
> David King
>

Have you updated the package sources list?

In a terminal run...

sudo apt-get update

or open Update Manager and click the Check button and it'll update the 
list of packages.

I've seen this sort of thing happen when the packages have been updated 
(for instance Firefox has recently been updated to 3.6.7) and the old 
packages have been removed, as the list of packages hasn't been updated 
it still looks for the older version.

If you update your package list and run Update Manager again it should 
hopefully pick up the changes in packages and install the newest versions.

Rob