[Bug 1607535] Re: ttf-mscorefonts-installer 3.4+nmu1ubuntu2 fails to install core fonts

[Nathanaël Naeri]

As proposed in comments 56 57, I have temporarily removed the duplicate
status of this bug to un-hide it in the package's bug list, in the hope
that people will find it more easily and stop opening new bugs to report
this problem.

I have updated the description with all the findings made about this
bug, in particular its cause, two workarounds, and Julian Klode's work
to fix it in bug 1651923. Please improve on this description if you can.
Thanks to all the people who contributed to investigating this bug.

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Title:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer 3.4+nmu1ubuntu2 fails to install core fonts

Status in msttcorefonts package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  [Symptoms]

  When installing or updating the package ttf-mscorefonts-installer in
  Ubuntu 16.04 or 16.10, an error message appears in a GUI window,
  indicating "failure to download extra data files" (the fonts
  themselves) "after package installation" (the package itself appears
  to have been installed). This error message re-appears regularly, as a
  cron-job re-tries the failed download.

  If installing or updating from the command line, additional failure
  information is given in an error message prefixed by "E:", but this
  error message depends on the mirror server which is contacted for the
  download: "404 Not Found" is common, but there is also "Protocol http
  not supported or disabled in libcurl", and complains about invalid
  Content-Range headers.

  [Cause]

  The current 3.4 version of ttf-mscorefonts-installer in Ubuntu 16.04
  delegates the download of the proprietary Microsoft Core Fonts for the
  Web (Andale, Arial...) to the package update-notifier, which itself
  delegates it to the program apt-helper provided by the package apt.
  The download URL points to the host downloads.sourceforge.net, which
  redirects to a randomly-chosen mirror server
  <mirror>.dl.sourceforge.net.

  Unfortunately, the program apt-helper has a bug in the way it treats
  redirections. This bug makes apt-helper keep a space in the URL
  instead of encoding it to %20 before contacting the mirror. It is more
  extensively documented in bug 1655431 and bug 1651923. The mirror
  replies to this malformed request with an error message (e.g. "404 Not
  Found"), and download fails.

  Some mirrors appear to understand the malformed request nonetheless,
  and send the requested font file, however since there are 11 fonts to
  download, the chances of getting 11 understanding mirrors are low.
  Hence why the error message usually concerns andale32.exe or
  arial32.exe instead of webdin32.exe.

  [Workaround 1]

  Download the fonts manually and put them all in the same directory.
  You can use wget for that, because contrary to apt-helper, it handles
  redirections fine (command line formatted for readability, do not
  include line breaks and line indents):

    $ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/
        {andale32.exe,arial32.exe,arialb32.exe,comic32.exe,courie32.exe,
        georgi32.exe,impact32.exe,times32.exe,trebuc32.exe,verdan32.exe,
        webdin32.exe}

  Or you can use your browser: point it to
  https://sourceforge.net/projects/corefonts/files/the%20fonts/final and
  download the same files.

  Make sure the package is purged and no remaining setup triggers are
  remaining, using your favorite package manager or command-line APT:

    $ sudo apt-get purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer

  Then reinstall the package, this time pointing to the previously-
  downloaded fonts in a second step:

    $ sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
      # (this will most likely fail again)
    $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure ttf-mscorefonts-installer

  The second command should return a "graphical" interface in the
  terminal. Use it to point to the directory where you downloaded the
  fonts (/path/to/directory/containing/the/fonts). Make sure no .deb
  files are in this directory, they seem to be picked up too and then it
  fails.

  If a pop-up shows up for a post-install action later, just let it run,
  it shouldn't come back. It may triggered by the file /var/lib/update-
  notifier/user.d/data-downloads-failed and you may be successful in
  avoiding the regularly-reappearing message by removing this file. But
  this point is less clear.

  Once everything is working, you can delete the downloaded fonts in
  .exe format, they have been uncompressed and installed in
  /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts in .ttf format.

  Adapted from: Vincent Gerris (comment 17), Lesley Binks (comment 18).

  [Workaround 2]

  Remove Ubuntu's version of ttf-mscorefonts-installer and install
  Debian's version instead. Indeed, Debian's version uses wget to
  download the fonts, and contrary to apt-helper, wget handles
  redirections fine.

  Download the package from https://packages.debian.org/ttf-mscorefonts-
  installer. Version 3.6 has been tested by several users. This
  workaround should work with Debian's version 3.4+nmu1 too, but then
  you'd be prompted to update to Ubuntu's problematic version
  3.4+nmu1ubuntu2 next time you update your packages.

  To download the package with wget (command line formatted for
  readability, do not include line break and line indent):

    $ wget http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/pool/contrib/m/
        msttcorefonts/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb

  Purge your currently-installed Ubuntu version of the package using
  your favorite package manager or command-line APT, and install the
  Debian version with dpkg:

    $ sudo apt-get purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer
    $ sudo dpkg --install /path/to/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb

  You should keep the deb-file around, so when this bug is fixed in
  Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10, you can uninstall Debian's version of the
  package and go back to Ubuntu's version:

    $ sudo dpkg --purge /path/to/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb
    $ sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

  Adapted from: yas (comment 19), Richard Elkins (comment 40)

  [Fix]

  The bug was fixed by Julian Klode in version 1.4~beta3ubuntu1 of
  package apt for the upcoming 17.04 release, see bug 1651923 comments
  24 25. If everything works fine in the development release, Julian may
  backport his fix to the previous 16.04 and 16.10 releases, but this
  process currently takes a few weeks to a few months.

  Subscribe to this bug and bug 1651923 to follow on the progress.

  This bug used to be a duplicate of bug 1651923, but was temporarily
  de-duplicated to hopefully make it easier for people to find it,
  instead of reporting the issue as a new bug. Otherwise, duplicates are
  hidden.

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