Workaround tested and working on Ubuntu 17.10.
When attempting to run:
sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
The following output appeared:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 20 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/27.6 kB of archives.
After this operation, 94.2 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package ttf-mscorefonts-installer.
(Reading database ... 281508 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Unpacking ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.6ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (3.186) ...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: processing...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
Err:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
Redirection from https to 'http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mirrorproblem?failedmirror=jaist.dl.sourceforge.net' is forbidden [IP: 150.65.7.130 443]
E: Failed to fetch https://jaist.dl.sourceforge.net/project/corefonts/the fonts/final/andale32.exe Redirection from https to 'http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mirrorproblem?failedmirror=jaist.dl.sourceforge.net' is forbidden [IP: 150.65.7.130 443]
E: Download Failed
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.6ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu2) ...
If you then repeat the install command, it seems to indicate that it has already been installed but after rebooting, the problem reappears. This time, as a dialog that says:
Failure to download extra data files
The following packages requested additional data downloads after package installation, but the data could not be downloaded or could not be processed.
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
I am careful to call this a workaround rather than a proper solution. Proper solution is one where the patch is applied to the installer itself.
On high level, the workaround steps are:
sudo apt-get purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer
to remove the partially installed.<root of web server>/corefonts/
.downloads.sourceforge.net
to 127.0.0.1
.sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
.Firstly, we need to cleanup the failed installation of that package by running:
sudo apt-get purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer
We need to host a web server. This will be used to host files downloaded from SourceForge. This is further explained in the section below.
I did not explain the details on how to host a web server. There are plenty written by others. Look for “how to setup apache/nginx” or “how to run HTTP server on NodeJS”.
The ttf-mscorefonts-installer
, as the name says, is just an installer that downloads a dozen font files from SourceForge. Download all of the Microsoft TrueType core fonts via a web browser.
Place the downloaded files into <root of web server>/corefonts/
. The corefonts
subfolder must be created.
Edit the hosts file located at /etc/hosts
. You will need sudo
for this.
Example:
sudo nano /etc/hosts
Paste the following entry at the end of file:
127.0.0.1 downloads.sourceforge.net
Note: This assumes your web server is hosted locally otherwise change 127.0.0.1
to point to your IP address.
Following solution shared by user n.st on StackExchange, create a new file under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
with a file name that does not already exist in this folder.
cd /etc/apt/apt.conf.d
sudo touch temporary
sudo nano temporary
Then paste the following:
// Do not verify peer certificate
Acquire::https::Verify-Peer "false";
// Do not verify that certificate name matches server name
Acquire::https::Verify-Host "false";
Reinstall using:
sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
The expected output:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 20 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/27.6 kB of archives.
After this operation, 94.2 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package ttf-mscorefonts-installer.
(Reading database ... 281508 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Unpacking ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.6ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (3.186) ...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: processing...
ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
Get:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe [198 kB]
Fetched 198 kB in 0s (3,152 kB/s)
...
All done, no errors.
All fonts downloaded and installed.
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.6ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu2) ...
If you are seeing similar output, the installation has completed successfully.
Do not skip this step. This is very important due to security risk of accepting invalid certificates.
Remove the host entry line that was added into /etc/hosts
.
127.0.0.1 downloads.sourceforge.net
Delete the config file that allowed APT to accept invalid certificate:
sudo rm /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/temporary
Finally, delete folder <root of web server>/corefonts
.