"Error setting up repositories" - QUBES 4.3 install problem

User Support General
1

Hi everyone
I am a long time user of QUBES and have it installed on two laptops currently. I was in the process of doing a clean install of 4.3 but have run into a problem I’ve never seen.

To cover a few things firstly.

I have tried to install this by using initially balena, then ventoy (just to see if it would work) and rufus in dd mode. I end up in the same place each time. I also tried on two laptops, one which has QUBES on it, and another which doesn’t but just to see if I could get further.

I get as far as the screen where you set up the partition, user account etc. I can set everything up except in the middle column under “software” at “installation source” the error under that is “error setting up repositories”. So if I click on that I get a few options, none of which work. The logical one that I think should fix it is

“Auto-detected installation media:
Device: LABEL=QUBES-R4-3-0-X86-64”.

Alongside that is a “verify” button that doesn’t do anything.

I’ve tried all of these options here such as “auto detect” with no luck.

I did bring up another error message that said:

"Failed to add the ‘anaconda’ repository: Failed to download metadata for repo ‘anaconda’: respond.xml parser error: Parse error at line 1 (Start tag excpected, ‘<’ not found)

I’m stumped I’m afraid. As I said, I’m not a newbie as such and I’ve wrestled with QUBES many times, always with success but not this time. So anyone has an idea of how I fix this I’d appreciate it.

Thanks

2

Well, I solved my problem.

The issue turned out to be the installation media which were Sandisk 32gb memory sticks which seem to be almost the only medium sold in my area at a big retailer. I went in this morning and managed to find an alternative, a 128gb Kodak memory stick. Redid the installer with rufus and this fixed the problem.

I have undoubtedly used these Sandisk sticks before so why it started they started to play up now is unknown.

Problem solved.

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3

A good result!

For interest, did you try the “Test media” option on the initial menu?

My experience is that Sandisk flash devices are very sensitive to power supply variations during write operations. They quickly go to non-recoverable read-only state if the USB power is not at the correct level.

I never use Sandisk now.

4

Thanks for the reply
No. I didn’t test the media primarily because I’ve never had media problems before. And to be honest even buying the Kodak stick was an afterhought as I was in town and walked past the shop. Lesson learned however.

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