dist-upgrade problem with "repository does not have a release file"

[joneall]

I have had for some time messages from 'apt upgrade' like this:

Err:1 https://repository.spotify.com stable InRelease
The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY C85668DF69375001

I have no idea how this came about, as I have carefully avoided fooling around with packages, but this seems serious.

E: The repository 'https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/inkscape.dev/stable-0.92/ubuntu noble Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default

The result now is that I cannot do a dist-upgrade. I think this happened when I tried to install an older version .92 of inkscape as I could not do some tings wih 1.2.

By the way, where is the package name in that?

Any suggestions will be very much appreciated.

I have been avoiding for years having to delve into package management beyond the use of 'apt get' and friends, as it seems to me to be a can of worms. Has the moment come to dig deeper? Any suggestions for a tutorial?

[claydoh]

Check with Spotify about their key, it may have changed or expired. A web search on the exact error message may show an exact fix, but the no-pubkey error is a common thing in Debian and Ubuntu land so there are dozens and dozens of posts and how-tos for this

As for the second, your PPA doesn't make packages for 24.04. This isn't uncommon either in Ubuntu land.

This may be tricky, but it probably isn't.
If your version of Inkscape is from Ubuntu and not the PPA you can just remove or disable the PPA and move on.

[joneall]

Check with Spotify about their key, it may have changed or expired. A web search on the exact error message may show an exact fix, but the no-pubkey error is a common thing in Debian and Ubuntu land so there are dozens and dozens of posts and how-tos for this

Indeed there are, the ones as unhelpful as the others.

As for the second, your PPA doesn't make packages for 24.04. This isn't uncommon either in Ubuntu land.

This may be tricky, but it probably isn't.
If your version of Inkscape is from Ubuntu and not the PPA you can just remove or disable the PPA and move on.

Great, How do I do that?

$ sudo apt remove inkscape
[sudo] password for jon:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Package 'inkscape' is not installed, so not removed

How can the repository or the key or whatever be bad if the damn thing isn't even installed? I think it's because I tried -- without success -- to install an older version, and that failed.

Thanks, as always, for your assistance.

[claydoh]

https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...-outdated-keys

And (easier to follow)

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/...linux-mint/amp

And

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Des...6614635#M23303

[claydoh]

How can the repository or the key or whatever be bad if the damn thing isn't even installed? I think it's because I tried -- without success -- to install an older version, and that failed.

For Inkscape, you added a third-party PPA at some point in the past. If you did this before moving to 24.04, PPAs are disabled when upgrading to a new release, so you must have re-enabled it, or *buntu upgrades do so afterwards now, which I do not believe was the case previously.

If you added the repo in 24.04, there is no warning or indication that it has any support for 24.04 at all until you refresh the package list, which happens automatically when using the add-apt-repository command to add it or when you manually check for updates.. So always check any PPA or external repo before just adding something you found in an old post somewhere (note that the PPA from your error hasn't been used in five years. They have more than one).

If you really want to avoid this sort of thing and avoid bad signing keys, etc at all, use flatpak or snap instead.

Since you don't have Inkscape installed, you can remove the repo info, either using Synaptic or by deleting the relevant file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d.

Now, a tip for PPAs: if you add one that works, and don't want it any longer, use the command ppa-purge to both remove it and downgrade any packages from it back to stock. It us used exactly in the same manner as when you used the add-apt-repository command to add it. However, in your case here, it won't work, so you would need to delete the relevant file from /etc/apt/sources.list.d or via Synaptic.

Spotify is NOT a PPA, it is their own repo, and they routinely have issues with their security keys.