Cannot add any PPA

Question

I recently tried to add PPA from this website. I did sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-qt5-edgers/qt5-proper from terminal. I get an error saying

Cannot add PPA: 'ppa:canonical-qt5-edgers/qt5-proper'.
Please check that the PPA name or format is correct.

As suggested in other similar questions, I don't have any problem with internet connection because apt-get install is working as expected. This is not even PPA specific problem, I couldn't add other PPAs as well. This question says that I have to format the entire hard drive to solve this. I definitely cannot do that. Is this bug still unsolved?

I added the PPA line using Software Center. When it updates cache, it comes up with an error saying

W:GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net saucy Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY F141B5F0C7122F9B, W:Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 13.04 _Raring Ringtail_ - Release i386 (20130424)/dists/raring/main/binary-i386/Packages  Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
, W:Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 13.04 _Raring Ringtail_ - Release i386 (20130424)/dists/raring/restricted/binary-i386/Packages  Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
, E:Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Output of sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-qt5-edgers/qt5-proper

Cannot add PPA: 'ppa:canonical-qt5-edgers/qt5-proper'.
Please check that the PPA name or format is correct.

How to solve this and what is the cause of this problem?

Thanks in advance.

OS: Ubuntu 13.10

AFTER EDIT: Before the edit, the question had PPA of Ubuntu SDK.After posting this, I realised that Ubuntu SDK is in the repositories of Ubuntu 13.10. Just thought, may be that's why I cannot add PPA. I tried next PPA and I came up with the same series of errors.

Ok, run the following sudo add-apt-repository -m ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa, copy all the output and edit your question. — Braiam, Nov 23 '13 at 15:14
Even with the -m flag, I get the same error as posted in question. "Cannot add PPA....". — nitishch, Nov 23 '13 at 15:46
The -m flag is not to fix the error... is to debug the error. Copy and paste the output in your question.... — Braiam, Nov 23 '13 at 15:54
Here at the manpage -m is not defined. In 14.04 manpage it stands for massive-debug. — sourav c., Nov 23 '13 at 16:22
@souravc man add-apt-repository indeed shows -m as printing a lot of debug information to the command line. — nitishch, Nov 23 '13 at 16:26
Precede your PPA with "http://" sudo add-apt-repository ppa:http://ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa — douggro, Nov 23 '13 at 16:29
Same error even with sudo add-apt-repository ppa:http://ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa — nitishch, Nov 23 '13 at 16:42
@nitish Path to PPA: http://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-sdk-team, also add https://launchpad.net/~canonical-qt5-edgers/+archive/qt5-proper — douggro, Nov 23 '13 at 20:06
Now, I can download Ubuntu SDK through repositories in Ubuntu 13.10 without adding any PPA. But, I cannot add any PPA. That's why I changed entire question — nitishch, Nov 24 '13 at 05:15

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 02 '14 at 12:30

2

In addition to configuring proxies, tell sudo to consider the environment with the flag -E

export http_proxy=http://<proxy>:<port>
export https_proxy=http://<proxy>:<port>
sudo -E apt-add-repository ppa:canonical-qt5-edgers/qt5-proper

with username and password:

export https_proxy=<username>:<password>@<proxy>:<port>

answered Jun 02 '14 at 12:30

αғsнιη

35,660

it worked for me thanks. the proxies were configured but sudo was not using them. and the error message was not helping. great answer! – Bastian Jul 23 '14 at 09:04

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 14:17

0

try

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ca-certificates

More info at http://www.webupd8.org/2014/03/fix-cannot-add-ppa-please-check-that.html

answered Mar 04 '14 at 14:17

jaseem

691
4
7

2

This didn't work – nitishch Mar 04 '14 at 15:46

Cannot add any PPA

2 Answers2