Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS: problem with Skype

Question

eventually I have made the decision to get rid of windows and go for ubuntu!! I had been thinking to do so for long time, but I was keeping putting it off. So, I am excited, but I have also started to hit the first issues :).

I now have a problem with skype, and that's why I am writing.

My ubuntu version is the following:

davide@Gis74:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:   trusty

I installed skype a couple of weeks ago and it had worked fine until this morning. Since this morning I can no longer connect to it and I have been getting the following notification:

An error occurred, please run Package Manager from the right-click menu or apt-get in a terminal to see what is wrong. The error message was: 'Unknown Error: '' ("The cache has no package named 'skype-bin'")' This usually means that your installed packages have unmet dependencies

I did some research without too much luck. I am posting some of the commands output I seem to understand can be useful to debug the issue:

davide@Gis74:~$ sudo apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 26 not to upgrade.


davide@Gis74:~$ sudo apt-cache policy 'skype*:*'
skype:
  Installed: 4.2.0.11-0ubuntu0.12.04.2
  Candidate: 4.3.0.37-0ubuntu0.12.04.1
  Version table:
     4.3.0.37-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 0
        500 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ trusty/partner amd64 Packages
 *** 4.2.0.11-0ubuntu0.12.04.2 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
skype4pidgin:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: (none)
  Version table:
skype-mid:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: (none)
  Version table:
pidgin-skype-dbg:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 20130613+svn660+dfsg-1
  Version table:
     20130613+svn660+dfsg-1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/multiverse amd64 Packages
skype-bin:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: (none)
  Version table:
skype-common:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: (none)
  Version table:
empathy-skype:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 20130613+svn660+dfsg-1
  Version table:
     20130613+svn660+dfsg-1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/multiverse amd64 Packages
pidgin-skype:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 20130613+svn660+dfsg-1
  Version table:
     20130613+svn660+dfsg-1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/multiverse amd64 Packages
pidgin-skype-common:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 20130613+svn660+dfsg-1
  Version table:
     20130613+svn660+dfsg-1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/multiverse amd64 Packages 

I was thinking to re-install/upgrade skype but I am not sure how to do it. Can anyone please help?

Many thanks, Davide

Answer 1

Skype 4.2 no longer works because Microsoft want everyone to upgrade to the latest version. This is Ubuntu version independent - it will affect you if you have 12.04 or 14.04.

_{Taken from this article on OMG Ubuntu}

Older versions of Skype will stop working; they won't be able to sign into ...the service.

Why? Microsoft says they “…want everyone to experience the best Skype has to offer – from enhanced quality to better reliability to improved security – and the newest version of Skype is the way to do that.”

It is quite hard to keep support for older systems for a long time - it limits development.

Here is the latest (4.3) release. It says it is for 12.04, but it works fine on 14.04

My pronouns are He / Him