Bug#858465: autopkgtest fails with no error when apt fails to fetch packages "Tests fail with 'Temporary failure resolving ...'"

[Gianfranco Costamagna]

Source: autopkgtest

Version: 4.3
(really version is git commit id a93602a9c122296a6f8a72c7877049991c7587f7 )

Hello, as said in #ubuntu-release I got a few tests shown as "running" but instead they were
uncatched failed.

Sometimes apt errors are shown as "regression" but sometimes they aren't correctly catched
and then the test is not retried.

copy-pasting irc log:
[17:24:56] <LocutusOfBorg> http://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/packages/liba/libanyevent-memcached-perl/zesty/armhf
[17:24:57] <LocutusOfBorg> this one
[17:26:13] <Laney> click the last log
[17:26:19] <Laney> get to https://objectstorage.prodstack4-5.canonical.com/v1/AUTH_77e2ada1e7a84929a74ba3b87153c0ac/autopkgtest-zesty/zesty/armhf/liba/libanyevent-memcached-perl/20170322_080446_7bbce@/log.gz
[17:26:25] <Laney> hack the URL to see the raw index
[17:26:29] <Laney> https://objectstorage.prodstack4-5.canonical.com/v1/AUTH_77e2ada1e7a84929a74ba3b87153c0ac/autopkgtest-zesty/?format=plain&prefix=zesty/armhf/liba/libanyevent-memcached-perl/
[17:26:48] <Laney> pick the second most recent one (in this case) https://objectstorage.prodstack4-5.canonical.com/v1/AUTH_77e2ada1e7a84929a74ba3b87153c0ac/autopkgtest-zesty/zesty/armhf/liba/libanyevent-memcached-perl/20170318_205505_4c98c@/log.gz
[17:27:17] <Laney> -> there was a transient failure, which killed the run and was not reported as such


[17:27:34] <LocutusOfBorg> yes, I retried a lot of that "connection failure" tests
[17:27:44] <LocutusOfBorg> they were reported as bad and I just retried them
[17:27:54] <LocutusOfBorg> so, it tried, it didn't report them correctly, so I didn't notice them
[17:27:56] <LocutusOfBorg> interesting


[17:28:07] <Laney> that is worth a bug on src:autopkgtest at debian
[17:28:18] <Laney> and if you want to hack on it, probably making the apt install retry a few times in such cases


[17:32:48] <Laney> LocutusOfBorg: Nothing wrong with a bug saying "Tests fail with 'Temporary failure resolving ...' sometimes", and pasting the log

[17:43:29] <Laney> LocutusOfBorg: I think you would protect basically all of the apt-get calls in https://anonscm.debian.org/git/autopkgtest/autopkgtest.git/tree/setup-commands/setup-testbed with a retry

I hope this is enough to trace down the issue :)

thanks!

G.