Debian sources errors

Question

When I try to update my packages on my Chromebook (with Linux installed on it) I do this: sudo apt-get update, and it gives me this error:

Ign:1 https://deb.debian.org/debian stretch InRelease
Ign:2 https://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates InRelease
Err:3 https://deb.debian.org/debian stretch Release

Err:4 https://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates Release

Reading package lists... Done
E: The repository 'https://deb.debian.org/debian stretch Release' does no longer have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
E: The repository 'https://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates Release' does no longer have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

Because of this I am no longer able to install packages (and or update) in the terminal.

Any suggestions?

PS: it's not only when I update, when I tried to install Firefox I used sudo apt-get install firefox-esr. but it gave me this:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  fonts-stix | otf-stix fonts-lmodern
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  firefox-esr
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 42.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 164 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Err:1 https://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates/main amd64 firefox-esr amd64 60.6.1esr-1~deb9u1

E: Failed to fetch https://deb.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/f/firefox-esr/firefox-esr_60.6.1esr-1~deb9u1_amd64.deb  
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

Note that I am not questioning how to install firefox, I want to fix the errors.

Also: when I type ls /etc/apt/sources.list it returns /etc/apt/sources.list only. When I type lsb_release -a it returns:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 9.8 (stretch)
Release:        9.8
Codename:       stretch

When I type cat /etc/*-release it returns:

PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="9"
VERSION="9 (stretch)"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

And finally when I type cat /proc/version it says:

Linux version 4.19.16-02893-g2cf2c17c8a43 (chrome-bot@swarm-cros-729) (Chromium OS 8.0_pre349610_p20190109-r3 clang version 8.0.0 (/var/cache/chromeos-cache/distfiles/host/egit-src/clang.git a1a49a7b666a6a9d9b55b52602f9773a9e00b4f5) (/var/cache/chromeos-cache/distfiles/host/egit-src/llvm.git 331ffd31b3dd49b3f02a27556938b836b679f564) (based on LLVM 8.0.0svn)) #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jan 19 09:52:07 PST 2019

When I cat into /etc/apt/sources.list it gives me:

deb https://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates main

sources.list is a file containing your repositories. You need to cat it or otherwise just open in a text editor to check the contents. There is most likely a issue with how one of your repositories is formatted. Make sure it follows the advice outlined here on the Wiki. Check out a similar issue solved by user Stephen Kitt here. — kemotep, Apr 12 '19 at 20:41
the deb.debian.org redirector could be ("geolocally") failing. You could try replacing deb.debian.org with a country local mirror (usually http://ftp.xx.debian.org/debian), and putting back the default debian security url (http://security.debian.org/debian-security). Even if it's http, debian will still validate signed checksums. — A.B, Apr 12 '19 at 22:14
I think you question has been answered here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/371907/49853 — LiveWireBT, Apr 13 '19 at 03:31

codeWithMe · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-14T09:11:42.177

Finally after two days, many videos & cred to LiveWireBT and kemotep that helped me a lot. So the problem was that my sources were deleted from /etc/apt/sources.list, and the solution was to re-add all sources. I did that by running this command:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

And then I typed [ESC] & cl and then replaced everything inside of that with:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stable-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stable-updates main contrib non-free

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security stable/updates main
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian-security stable/updates main

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main

Then I had to exit with the ESC-button, and type :wq! sudo to save and exit. After that I updated my packages using sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade and it all worked after that.

Debian sources errors

1 Answers1