[Bug 756317] Re: Captive portals may corrupt apt translation indices

[Julius Schwartzenberg]

With the current situation, you do not even have to actively use APT behind such a portal for the bug to be triggered.
When my main internet connection was working with such a portal, APT just stopped working seemingly randomly because there apparently is some kind of auto fetch daemon running by default on Ubuntu. I had to delete the contents of that directory very regularly, because APT often wasn't working when I needed it. Of course I would only use APT myself once I verified that my connection was working properly.

And I'm sad to say it, but it seems such portals are very popular in
this part of the world :(

If this is not going to be fixed for Trusty, at least add a note to the
release notes which explains how to disable this automatic fetching of
package lists. That would significantly reduce the problem for many
people.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to apt in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/756317

Title:
  Captive portals may corrupt apt translation indices

Status in “apt” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in “apt” package in Debian:
  New

Bug description:
  I have an adsl modem which returns an html page if the adsl link is
  broken. This page ends as the content of the apt cache files stored in
  /var/lib/apt/lists, which breaks apt.

  The only way to make apt work again is to delete all the files stored
  in /var/lib/apt/lists.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/756317/+subscriptions