Can't download updates

[claydoh]

Even several days later I'm still having this issue with Neon...

ubuntu-advantage-tools
neon-ubuntu-advantage-tools
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

'hold' linux-firmware temporarily or in Discover uncheck it when updating. This will get you all the other updates.

sudo apt-mark hold linux-firmware​

and

sudo apt-mark hold linux-firmware​​

At the time of this post and answer (September 5, 2025, at approixmately 10:40 UTC-4), it is known to Canonical and many people who are actively working on development, patching, etc. that there was an outage on the primary public repository servers. All security updates and other update pockets were unavailable, and the upload / processing queue for Security updates among others was obscenely backlogged as a result of the outage.
This was reflected on https://status.canonical.com as acknowledged incidents:

• "archive.ubuntu.com" is Down"
• "security.ubuntu.com" is Down"

Both of these incidents were marked resolved after 36 minutes of outage time at approximately 04:30 UTC-4.
However, it is known that the backlog caused by the outage is causing the mirrors and security updates to be 'broken' at this time due to the backlog in the queue for processing. This queue is currently very large and there is likely to be issues with mirrors at this time during the update process. As such, you need to be patient and try again several hours from now (up to 24 hours from now as well if you want, just to make sure stuff stabilizes first).
There is nothing you can currently do about this except wait it out. Mirrors that synced during the outage time or are mid-sync right now during the large queue backlog may get the 500 errors as well on the mirrors.

[Qqmike]

That explains the error I got trying to get 300 MB of firmware update, about two days ago (for 22.04) (I haven't tried it since then):

Package download failed:

E: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware all 20220329.git681281e4-0ubuntu3.39 is not (yet) available (500 Internal Server Error [IP: 91.189.91.83 80])

[joneall]

Same problem here ... still, on Sunday morning (In Europe). What is this advantage-tools thing?

$ ubuntu-advantage-tools
ubuntu-advantage-tools: command not found

$ sudo apt install ubuntu-advantage-tools
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
ubuntu-advantage-tools is already the newest version (99+p24.04+vrelease+git20250904.1337).
.

So is it installed or not?

[claydoh]

So is it installed or not?

Yes.

There was an update to the 'dummy' neon packaging just before the Ubuntu repo kerfluffle, so not everyone got this

[joneall]

Yes.

There was an update to the 'dummy' neon packaging just before the Ubuntu repo kerfluffle, so not everyone got this

If it's installed, why does it say command not found?

[claydoh]

Because there is no executable in the package named ubuntu-advantage-tools. It is just a package name.

It is also just a 'dummy' package that in *buntu would install ubuntu-pro-client. so it doesn't have any real system files in it.
And to make things messier to describe, as you are using KDE neon, this is also a dummy, to keep the Ubuntu version from being installed.


TMI time:

apt info ubuntu-advantage-tools
Package: ubuntu-advantage-tools
Version: 99+p24.04+vrelease+git20250904.1337
Priority: optional
Section: kde
Maintainer: Neon CI <neon@kde.org>
Installed-Size: 10.2 kB
Download-Size: 1,986 B
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: http://archive.neon.kde.org/user noble/main amd64 Packages
Description: Dummy package
Ubuntu Advantage Tools are not relevant to Neon systems so this
is an empty package to ensure they are not installed.

[joneall]

So ubuntu-advantage-tools is just there to keep from having unfulfilled links or something like that. We can't really use it.

As for the firmware, that updated fine this morning (08:00 Paris time).

[Beerislife]

I'm still getting this, even Monday evening here:

0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Setting up ubuntu-advantage-tools (99+p24.04+vrelease+git20250904.1337) ...
Invalid unit name "esm-cache.service" escaped as "esm-cache.service\xe2\x80\x8b"
(maybe you should use systemd-escape?).
dpkg-divert:error: 'diversion of /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf to /et
c/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf.disabled by ubuntu-advantage-tools' clashes
with 'local diversion of /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf to /etc/apt/ap
t.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf.disabled'
dpkg: error processing package ubuntu-advantage-tools (--configure):
installed ubuntu-advantage-tools package post-installation script subprocess re
turned error exit status 2
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of neon-ubuntu-advantage-tools:
neon-ubuntu-advantage-tools depends on ubuntu-advantage-tools; however:
Package ubuntu-advantage-tools is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package neon-ubuntu-advantage-tools (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
ubuntu-advantage-tools
neon-ubuntu-advantage-tools
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Otherwise everything else installs just fine from Discover. Nothing seems broken, I just
don't like to see errors! I'll probably end up just blacklisting those packages as they
don't seem important enough to install...

[claydoh]

Hmm...did you ever mess with things to block that red text in the terminal? Using the dpkg-divert command?

If so, you will want to undo that.
It probably is this:

dpkg-divert --remove --rename /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf.disabled

and try again.

Carlos got around to fixing that red text and I think added that divert in the update, and us ubntrepid forward thinkers busted it lol!

I had overlooked your specific error before, apologies. Even more so, since I had to fix that
back on Friday.



A side note: don't forget to 'paste without formatting' or use the T_x before using the code block to remove the color and font formatting bbcode, our editor doesn't seem to grok this stuff well.