Launchpad itself

apt upgrade fails with '500 Internal Server Error'

Asked by Tony Williams

I'm getting the same error on 3 different ubuntu based machines during an apt upgrade:

Err:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware amd64 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17
  500 Internal Server Error [IP: 91.189.91.81 80]

The IP address is different for each machine, but the firmware package is the same.

All 3 machines are xubuntu 24.04.3. One is a VirtualBox VM that was created recently.

I changed the security package mirror on one machine to http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/, and got the same error.

Output for: sudo apt update

Hit:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble InRelease
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease [126 kB]
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease [126 kB]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 Components [175 kB]
Get:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease [126 kB]
Get:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/restricted amd64 Components [212 B]
Get:7 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/universe amd64 Components [377 kB]
Get:8 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/multiverse amd64 Components [940 B]
Get:9 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports/main amd64 Components [7,076 B]
Get:10 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports/restricted amd64 Components [216 B]
Get:11 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports/universe amd64 Components [19.2 kB]
Get:12 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports/multiverse amd64 Components [212 B]
Get:13 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/main amd64 Components [21.6 kB]
Get:14 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/restricted amd64 Components [208 B]
Get:15 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/universe amd64 Components [52.3 kB]
Get:16 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/multiverse amd64 Components [208 B]
Fetched 1,032 kB in 3s (330 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
19 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.

Output for: sudo apt -y upgrade

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libllvm19
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.
Get more security updates through Ubuntu Pro with 'esm-apps' enabled:
  vlc-plugin-qt libvlc5 libmagickcore-6.q16-7t64 libzvbi-common vlc-data
  libvlccore9 vlc imagemagick vlc-bin libmagickcore-6.q16-7-extra vlc-l10n
  libcjson1 libpostproc57 vlc-plugin-samba libavcodec60
  libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 libzvbi0t64 vlc-plugin-notify libavutil58
  imagemagick-6.q16 libswscale7 vlc-plugin-access-extra vlc-plugin-skins2
  vlc-plugin-video-splitter libswresample4 imagemagick-6-common
  vlc-plugin-video-output 7zip libavformat60 gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
  libvlc-bin vlc-plugin-base vlc-plugin-visualization libavfilter9
  libmagickwand-6.q16-7t64
Learn more about Ubuntu Pro at https://ubuntu.com/pro
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libllvm20
The following packages will be upgraded:
  cpp-11 fwupd gcc-11 gcc-11-base libasan6 libegl-mesa0 libegl1-mesa-dev libfwupd2 libgbm1 libgcc-11-dev libgl1-mesa-dri
  libglx-mesa0 libtsan0 libxatracker2 linux-firmware mesa-libgallium mesa-va-drivers mesa-vdpau-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers
19 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 standard LTS security update
Need to get 537 MB/638 MB of archives.
After this operation, 144 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Ign:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware amd64 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17
Ign:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware amd64 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17
Ign:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware amd64 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17
Ign:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware amd64 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17
Err:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 linux-firmware amd64 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17
  500 Internal Server Error [IP: 2620:2d:4002:1::102 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17_amd64.deb 500 Internal Server Error [IP: 2620:2d:4002:1::102 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

Output for sudo apt --fix-broken install

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 19 not upgraded.

The fix-broken-install does nothing.
I've done this several times on all 3 machines today, and got the same result. The firmware is the same for all 3 machines: linux-firmware_20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17.

Is there something wrong with that package?
Is there anything else I can do to fix this on my end?

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Tony Williams
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Revision history for this message
Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#1

Not a problem with linux-firmware. but related to launchpad hosting.
Moving the question there.

Remark: There is already a similar problem already reported in https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/822446

Revision history for this message
Tony Williams (lovestocode) said : 		#2

The link below answered my question as to why it happened. It didn't solve the problem though. There was an outage that was fixed, but there's a backlog causing more problems. I'll wait till tomorrow to see if the problem goes away.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1555546/why-am-i-unable-to-update-ubuntu-right-now-september-5-2025-incident

Revision history for this message
Tony Williams (lovestocode) said : 		#3

I attempted to update again, and the problem persisted. The linux-firmware would not download completely. I changed mirrors. That did not help.

I solved the problem by downloading the firmware package directly, then installing it manually.

wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-firmware_20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.17_amd64.deb

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

I repeated this for my other 2 xubuntu machines by copying the .deb file. They are all the same version 24.04.3. Anybody else out there using this method, make sure the package you download matches the apt update error message exactly.

Revision history for this message
David Centeno (dsenteno1817) said : 		#4

I'm experienced the same issue with my Ubuntu Studio, ain't sure if perform any manual update, so I'm trying to actually wait for tomorrow and see if may work....

Revision history for this message
Daniel Greeley (danielgreeley) said : 		#5

Problem remains for me as well across all my systems. Unable to update them.

Revision history for this message
Ben (bishafc) said : 		#6

I've resolved this by pointing to a mirror based in my country (UK - University of Kent). Steps:

1. Source a mirror that is most appropriate to you - see https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors.
2. Copy the current sources list (backup backup backup!) to some kind of .old file. I tend to just set the date:
sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.20250907

2. Open the sources list:
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

3. Modify all the links in there to your new mirror, in my example I changed everything that started

http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
to
http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/

4. Re-run your command. For me it was a do-release-upgrade but in the original question it was an apt upgrade request.