112

I tried updating my packages from the terminal and this is what I got:

$ sudo apt-get update
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.

What does this mean? I'm using the United States mirror an I've tried using the main server for the mirror and I keep getting the same result is this because there are no updates?

2
  • Can you show your /etc/apt/sources.list?
    – César
    Jul 19, 2012 at 20:28
  • 1
    See the answer for this one, it solved the issue for me on Debian Stretch.
    – reim
    May 9, 2019 at 9:16

9 Answers 9

188

SirCharlo said in the duplicate of this question:

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https

I tried it and it worked for me.

5
  • 1
    This worked for me in Debian Squeeze. Dec 12, 2012 at 22:27
  • 1
    How is this possible? He can't able to connect to the internet. Apr 12, 2014 at 12:16
  • 1
    Sadly, this won't work if your apt cache is too far out of date. Now I'm stuck in a "hole in the bucket" problem :(
    – Owen
    Oct 3, 2016 at 15:34
  • @Owen why not just disable the https repo until you can update your cache?
    – Bratchley
    Mar 5, 2017 at 0:41
  • 1
    @Owen that would allow someone else to provide a replacement or trojan wrapper around any unsigned package. Sep 11, 2017 at 18:53
8

in my case, find all the source in .list file, eg:

/etc/apt/sources.list 
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/nginx.list 
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/passenger.list

some source in the list are forced using https:// even if you changed it into http:// it will redirected to https://

the solutions is :

  1. backup and remove the https source first
  2. then run apt-get update
  3. run sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
  4. restore the https source
2
  • so you're saying you should update over an insecure connection? Jun 29, 2018 at 9:27
  • this was the only solution that worked for me on kali linux
    – shenk
    Apr 5, 2019 at 12:15
6

Had the same problem on fresh OrangePi image. Swapping https to http didn't help. Finally I created a symlink to http with name https and was able to perform apt-get update. The first thing to install was apt-transport-https than I re-run the update.

2
  • 1
    The OrangePI seems actually to still have this problem, could you precisely explain what do you mean by a "symlink" in this case please ?
    – dlewin
    Feb 28, 2018 at 14:12
  • 4
    @dlewin cd /usr/lib/apt/methods then ln -s http https does the trick.
    – Alex
    Apr 14, 2018 at 11:32
2

My problem was the Opera browser in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list was, it was wrote:

https//:

but the correct is:

https://

So I fix the line this way:

deb https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/ stable non-free #Opera Browser (final releases)

and all solved!

0
1

My error read method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/htttp and after reading here and trying all offerings, I was about to give up when I noticed that the http had one extra t.

I went to did this:

sudo -H gedit /etc/apt/source.list

Ctrl + F to find all instances of htttp.

removed the extra t

Saved (twice to make sure the bugger took it)

And viola, problem solved.

Guess that means I need to REALLY Read the error messages as I had been skimming over them. Lesson learned. that won't happen again

1

I realize this is a very old thread, but in my case the sources.list file was missing "http." in the address. (ie, http://kali.org vs http://http.kali.org) I discovered this when comparing two VM's in my environment. Not sure where the error came from, but replacing that solved the issue.

0

I have faced this problem before, in my case the problem was in /etc/apt/sources.list. Make sure there are no quotation marks '' or "":

deb "http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ maverick partner (Source Code)"

Remove quotes and change those lines to:

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ maverick partner (Source Code)

Also, as @arhimed suggests, make sure the protocol is well-formed: http://

1
  • Everything is in good form any other ideas?
    – Abe
    Jul 20, 2012 at 14:12
0

look for https links in /etc/apt/sources.list check if http link of the same link works. if it does then replace http with https and enjoy. otherwise install sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https as said in the above answer by Damiön la Bagh

0

My comments here aren't directly related to the OP's question, but since this page comes up in google's first result when searching E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found. which is the error I was originally trying to solve, I am adding some information which helped me solve my problem.

I happen to be on an ethernet network which contains a "firewall" type device that redirects an unknown computer's web traffic to a webpage that requires you the "agree" to the terms of service for the network before you can continue. This page happens to be served as a HTTPS page. Therefore, any time apt-get tried to connect, it was ending up at an HTTPS site. This is also why trying to install apt-transport-https wasn't working for me.

1

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