Errors when updating Ubuntu 24.04 on WSL2 (Windows 10)

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Ubuntu Support Template

Ubuntu Version:
Example: 24.04

Desktop Environment (if applicable):

WSL2

Problem Description:
I am have a WSL2 installation of Ubuntu 24.04 that I am trying to update with

sudo apt update

But I receives errors that say it cannot resolve the urls.

Relevant System Information:
Windows 10, no pending updates

Screenshots or Error Messages:

tstewart@DESKTOP-TFRJ1CN:~/interlisp/medley$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for tstewart:
Ign:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease
Ign:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble InRelease
Ign:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease
Ign:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease
Ign:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease
Ign:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease
Ign:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble InRelease
Err:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
Ign:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease
Ign:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease
Ign:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble InRelease
Ign:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease
Ign:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease
Err:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com'
Err:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com'
Err:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com'
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
49 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble-updates/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble-backports/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble-security/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

What I’ve Tried:
I thought there might be a network problem. So I tried to ping archive.ubuntu.com in both Windows and Ubuntu. In both cases I was able to ping. This is the output from Ubuntu.

tstewart@DESKTOP-TFRJ1CN:~/interlisp/medley$ ping -c 4 archive.ubuntu.com
PING archive.ubuntu.com (91.189.92.22) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ubuntu-archive-mirror-1.ps7.canonical.com (91.189.92.22): icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=119 ms
64 bytes from ubuntu-archive-mirror-1.ps7.canonical.com (91.189.92.22): icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=118 ms
64 bytes from ubuntu-archive-mirror-1.ps7.canonical.com (91.189.92.22): icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=117 ms
64 bytes from ubuntu-archive-mirror-1.ps7.canonical.com (91.189.92.22): icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=117 ms

--- archive.ubuntu.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2998ms

I also tried curl to see what was returned.

tstewart@DESKTOP-TFRJ1CN:~$ curl http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Index of /ubuntu</title>
 </head>
 <body>
<h1>Index of /ubuntu</h1>
  <table>
   <tr><th valign="top"><img src="/icons/blank.gif" alt="[ICO]"></th><th><a href="?C=N;O=D">Name</a></th><th><a href="?C=M;O=A">Last modified</a></th><th><a href="?C=S;O=A">Size</a></th></tr>
   <tr><th colspan="4"><hr></th></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/back.gif" alt="[PARENTDIR]"></td><td><a href="/">Parent Directory</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/unknown.gif" alt="[   ]"></td><td><a href="Archive-Update-in-Progress-ubuntu-prod-archive-servers-2">Archive-Update-in-Progress-ubuntu-prod-archive-servers-2</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:48  </td><td align="right">  1 </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="dists/">dists/</a></td><td align="right">2025-10-09 16:00  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="indices/">indices/</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:34  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/compressed.gif" alt="[   ]"></td><td><a href="ls-lR.gz">ls-lR.gz</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:39  </td><td align="right"> 34M</td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="pool/">pool/</a></td><td align="right">2010-02-27 06:30  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="project/">project/</a></td><td align="right">2024-11-24 21:31  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="ubuntu/">ubuntu/</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:48  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
   <tr><th colspan="4"><hr></th></tr>
</table>
<address>Apache/2.4.52 (Ubuntu) Server at archive.ubuntu.com Port 80</address>
</body></html>
tstewart@DESKTOP-TFRJ1CN:~$ curl http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Index of /ubuntu</title>
 </head>
 <body>
<h1>Index of /ubuntu</h1>
  <table>
   <tr><th valign="top"><img src="/icons/blank.gif" alt="[ICO]"></th><th><a href="?C=N;O=D">Name</a></th><th><a href="?C=M;O=A">Last modified</a></th><th><a href="?C=S;O=A">Size</a></th></tr>
   <tr><th colspan="4"><hr></th></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/back.gif" alt="[PARENTDIR]"></td><td><a href="/">Parent Directory</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="dists/">dists/</a></td><td align="right">2025-10-09 16:00  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="indices/">indices/</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:34  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/compressed.gif" alt="[   ]"></td><td><a href="ls-lR.gz">ls-lR.gz</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:39  </td><td align="right"> 34M</td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="pool/">pool/</a></td><td align="right">2010-02-27 06:30  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="project/">project/</a></td><td align="right">2024-11-24 21:31  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><img src="/icons/folder.gif" alt="[DIR]"></td><td><a href="ubuntu/">ubuntu/</a></td><td align="right">2026-02-02 11:56  </td><td align="right">  - </td></tr>
   <tr><th colspan="4"><hr></th></tr>
</table>
<address>Apache/2.4.58 (Ubuntu) Server at archive.ubuntu.com Port 80</address>
</body></html>

Before Posting:
I found this similar question, but they were just asked to try to ping it and I did that. And there was no resolution.

2

Hi and welcome to the community! :waving_hand:

Since ping and curl are working, this looks like a DNS issue inside WSL rather than a general network problem.

Before we continue, could you confirm:

  • Are you using any antivirus or third-party firewall on Windows?
  • Are you connected through a VPN or corporate network?

Also, please run this inside Ubuntu and share the output:

cat /etc/resolv.conf

We want to check whether a valid nameserver is configured.

Looking forward to your reply!

2 Likes
3

Alright, to answer your first two questions.

  • Are you using any antivirus or third-party firewall on Windows?
    • Only the default Windows Security, and no third-party firewall on Windows.
  • Are you connected through a VPN or corporate network?
    • I do use a VPN, but it was not operating at the time.

That file contains:

tstewart@DESKTOP-TFRJ1CN:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
# This file was automatically generated by WSL. To stop automatic generation of this file, add the following entry to /etc/wsl.conf:
# [network]
# generateResolvConf = false
nameserver 172.26.32.1
4

I have no explanation for this because the only thing that has changed since I wrote my initial question was that I checked resolv.conf and answered your questions, but I decided to try it again and sudo apt update/upgrade worked properly this time. I didn’t even touch the computer between these.

5

It was just a temporary network failure.

1 Like
6

Glad to hear it’s working now! :blush:

I was actually about to suggest the classic “have you tried restarting it?” approach — but I felt that might be a bit too obvious to say out loud :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Sometimes WSL networking just needs a reset, especially with VPNs or network changes involved. A simple:

wsl --shutdown

followed by reopening Ubuntu can magically fix these temporary DNS hiccups.

In any case, I’m glad it resolved itself — and thanks for following up with the result!

1 Like
7

To give myself a little bit of credit, I did try restarting it before I wrote the initial question, I guess it seemed so obvious that I forgot to mention it as a step I took. Did that a few times, to no success. I’ve been using WSL for a few years now and this is the first really annoying hiccup I’ve had since WSL2 came out. Well, hopefully it will not return any time soon.