Yast issue - is this common?

On Friday I went to use Yast > Software Management, and during the
"Initializing > Downloading files..." stage it came back with a message
saying it was unable to find "CD1". At first I thought it was referring
to the installation media, but when I looked more closely at the details
I discovered it was referring to one of the online source repositories
(I think it was the one
[url]http://ftp-linux-cc.gatech.edu/pub/sue/sue/update10.2[/url]). It gave the
option to skip, which I did, but then later on came back with another
message about another file it was unable to find. So I "skipped" again,
and after it finished (the initialization) Yast just closed down (I
never was able to do anything with it).

Today I decided to try it again, and this time everything worked fine!
I was able to install Adobe Reader, etc. (which is what I had wanted to
do on Friday). So I'm guessing the server containing that repository
(with"CD1") was down on Friday. Is that a common occurrence? Also, if
a repository is inaccessible for some reason, is it normal for Yast to
shut down the way it did? Being new to SUSE, I'm still trying to sort
out what's normal behavior and what's not (and needs further
investigating).

Thanks for any feedback on this. Pat

Pat wrote:[color=blue]
> On Friday I went to use Yast > Software Management, and during the
> "Initializing > Downloading files..." stage it came back with a message
> saying it was unable to find "CD1". At first I thought it was referring
> to the installation media, but when I looked more closely at the details
> I discovered it was referring to one of the online source repositories
> (I think it was the one
> [url]http://ftp-linux-cc.gatech.edu/pub/sue/sue/update10.2[/url]). It gave the
> option to skip, which I did, but then later on came back with another
> message about another file it was unable to find. So I "skipped" again,
> and after it finished (the initialization) Yast just closed down (I
> never was able to do anything with it).
>
> Today I decided to try it again, and this time everything worked fine!
> I was able to install Adobe Reader, etc. (which is what I had wanted to
> do on Friday). So I'm guessing the server containing that repository
> (with"CD1") was down on Friday. Is that a common occurrence? Also, if
> a repository is inaccessible for some reason, is it normal for Yast to
> shut down the way it did? Being new to SUSE, I'm still trying to sort
> out what's normal behavior and what's not (and needs further
> investigating).
>
> Thanks for any feedback on this. Pat[/color]


It has seemed to me that while Yast works very well, it does hiccup once
in a while when it can't get to its repositories, or has trouble
resolving dependencies. I have had similar issues to yours, but they
seem to have faded over time. Not being able to reach a repo is going to
happen from time to time, so I wouldn't be worried about it. Just try
again later.

-------------------------snip---------------------------[color=blue][color=green]
>>
>> Thanks for any feedback on this. Pat[/color]
>
>
> It has seemed to me that while Yast works very well, it does hiccup once
> in a while when it can't get to its repositories, or has trouble
> resolving dependencies. I have had similar issues to yours, but they
> seem to have faded over time. Not being able to reach a repo is going to
> happen from time to time, so I wouldn't be worried about it. Just try
> again later.[/color]

In fact, if like me you have a LOT of repo's than this will happen more
often. Normally you can just say 'ignore' and try again later. Me's
thinks this is due to the fact that the server is busy or the
developer/maintainer is in the process of updating the files on the server
and so, even though the file may 'appear' to be available, in fact it is
not. If you go to the repo where the said file is you can right click on
the file and you will often see that the file is actually a pointer to
the 'actual' file which is temporarily 'locked' due to a pending change
(i.e. similar to a cvs lock where a file is about to be updated).

Just my 2¢ worth.

P.S. If you have the KDE4 repo on your installation sources or the
Gnome/unstable repo you will get these errors frequently !! Just
chose 'ignore' and try later.

:-)

Michael Soibelman wrote:[color=blue]
> -------------------------snip---------------------------[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> Thanks for any feedback on this. Pat[/color]
>>
>> It has seemed to me that while Yast works very well, it does hiccup once
>> in a while when it can't get to its repositories, or has trouble
>> resolving dependencies. I have had similar issues to yours, but they
>> seem to have faded over time. Not being able to reach a repo is going to
>> happen from time to time, so I wouldn't be worried about it. Just try
>> again later.[/color]
>
> In fact, if like me you have a LOT of repo's than this will happen more
> often. Normally you can just say 'ignore' and try again later. Me's
> thinks this is due to the fact that the server is busy or the
> developer/maintainer is in the process of updating the files on the server
> and so, even though the file may 'appear' to be available, in fact it is
> not. If you go to the repo where the said file is you can right click on
> the file and you will often see that the file is actually a pointer to
> the 'actual' file which is temporarily 'locked' due to a pending change
> (i.e. similar to a cvs lock where a file is about to be updated).
>
> Just my 2¢ worth.
>
> P.S. If you have the KDE4 repo on your installation sources or the
> Gnome/unstable repo you will get these errors frequently !! Just
> chose 'ignore' and try later.
>
> :-)[/color]

This also happens with the update servers, and that is rather
distressing when you can't do an update. It needs to have the
capability of multiple update servers with auto roll over to another and
no user interface required, or a user alert with a 30 second or less
auto time out and then try the next server.

And that message should be discriptive of what source is not currently
available and not automatically say CD. And if not available, it should
have a user option to sleep the update/install for a period and try
again without user initiation at that time.

Would it try all if you enter 3 different packman sites? Pick the first
one and ignore the rest if that one worked? Or would a failure on one
abort the rest also?

John

Pat wrote:[color=blue]
> On Friday I went to use Yast > Software Management, and during the
> "Initializing > Downloading files..." stage it came back with a message
> saying it was unable to find "CD1". At first I thought it was referring
> to the installation media, but when I looked more closely at the details
> I discovered it was referring to one of the online source repositories
> (I think it was the one
> [url]http://ftp-linux-cc.gatech.edu/pub/sue/sue/update10.2[/url]). It gave the
> option to skip, which I did, but then later on came back with another
> message about another file it was unable to find. So I "skipped" again,
> and after it finished (the initialization) Yast just closed down (I
> never was able to do anything with it).
>
> Today I decided to try it again, and this time everything worked fine!
> I was able to install Adobe Reader, etc. (which is what I had wanted to
> do on Friday). So I'm guessing the server containing that repository
> (with"CD1") was down on Friday. Is that a common occurrence? Also, if
> a repository is inaccessible for some reason, is it normal for Yast to
> shut down the way it did? Being new to SUSE, I'm still trying to sort
> out what's normal behavior and what's not (and needs further
> investigating).
>
> Thanks for any feedback on this. Pat[/color]

It's not normal but happens once in a while when the repositories are
closed. You can tell by going there with Konqueror. If it's closed it
won't let you in with an error like not found or something.

Pat wrote:[color=blue]
> On Friday I went to use Yast > Software Management, and during the
> "Initializing > Downloading files..." stage it came back with a message
> saying it was unable to find "CD1". At first I thought it was referring
> to the installation media, but when I looked more closely at the details
> I discovered it was referring to one of the online source repositories
> (I think it was the one
> [url]http://ftp-linux-cc.gatech.edu/pub/sue/sue/update10.2[/url]). It gave the
> option to skip, which I did, but then later on came back with another
> message about another file it was unable to find. So I "skipped" again,
> and after it finished (the initialization) Yast just closed down (I
> never was able to do anything with it).
>
> Today I decided to try it again, and this time everything worked fine!
> I was able to install Adobe Reader, etc. (which is what I had wanted to
> do on Friday). So I'm guessing the server containing that repository
> (with"CD1") was down on Friday. Is that a common occurrence? Also, if
> a repository is inaccessible for some reason, is it normal for Yast to
> shut down the way it did? Being new to SUSE, I'm still trying to sort
> out what's normal behavior and what's not (and needs further
> investigating).
>
> Thanks for any feedback on this. Pat[/color]


Thanks for all the responses on this. It's good to know this is not an
unusal event.

The one thing that struck me as being a little buggy though is the way
Yast shut down at the end. Why would one inaccessible repository cause
Yast to shut down like that? Shouldn't you still be able to update from
other, available repositories (or install from the installation dvd for
that matter) despite one repository being inaccessible?

-Pat