Updates hang on skype

[gmach24]

Hi - running Fedora 39. I have problems upgrading using the command line or dnfdragora-updater - both appear to hang on updating Skype (skype stable). Why I still have Skype is a whole other issue. This is what it looks like:

$sudo dnf update
skype (stable)                                  0.0  B/s |   0  B     02:04    
Errors during downloading metadata for repository 'skype-stable':
  - Curl error (28): Timeout was reached for https://repo.skype.com/rpm/stable/repodata/repomd.xml [Operation too slow. Less than 30720 bytes/sec transferred the last 30 seconds]
Error: Failed to download metadata for repo 'skype-stable': Cannot download repomd.xml: Cannot download repodata/repomd.xml: All mirrors were tried
Ignoring repositories: skype-stable
Last metadata expiration check: 0:09:21 ago on Sun 02 Jun 2024 08:34:09 AM EDT.
Dependencies resolved

After the delay, the update process continues. I started Skype and checked - it says I am running the latest version (8.119.0.201). Not sure if there is anything to do or if I should just leave it - assuming the package managers or whomever will resolve the issue.

Was trying to figure out how to skip skype-stable when doing a command line update/upgrade but the process still hangs on Skype before proceeding.

I did

$dnf upgrade -x skype-stable

Also tried

$dnf upgrade -x skypeforlinux

Same results.

Thanks.

[gmach24]

Guess I should have searched a little more. Seems Microsoft overlords discontinued rpm and deb packages in favor of SNAP - which, according to this post, works - but requires a 2GB download when installing the Skype SNAP version.

" Skype repo URL error" https://discussion.fedoraproject.org...error/118613/5

That post is from May 31 - so, recent.

I can continue using Skype as-is for awhile but, as someone in that Fedora Project thread mentions, seems like it's time to just use the browser version of Skype.

Any thoughts/advice (other than "get rid of Skype') are welcome.

Thanks.

Edit: If anyone wants to check further, this from Microsoft:

"we have decided to discontinue the distribution of Skype as DEB and RPM packages for Linux users, and instead focus on delivering Skype as a SNAP package."

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...d-8de8934dd312

This Microsoft page also gives instructions on how to install the Skype SNAP version.

So, I'm going to mark this "solved".

[RupertPupkin]

You don't have to uninstall skype just because there are no more updates for it via dnf. I have a number of packages in F40 that stopped getting updates long ago, including one from F9. Packages get abandoned and no longer maintained—it happens all the time.

To avoid the dnf errors there are several ways you can do that. For example, the repo that provides skype should have a file in /etc/yum.repos.d, possibly called "skype-stable.repo" or "microsoft-skype" (I don't know if that is the name, you'll have to check). Assuming no other applications are provided by that repo that you want to keep, you can either delete that file or set "enabled=0" in the file where currently it has "enabled=1". You could also run "dnf config-manager --set-disabled <name_of_the_repo>" as root (e.g. "dnf config-manager --set-disabled skype-stable"). Another way is to set "excludepkgs=skypeforlinux" in the /etc/dnf/dnf.conf file (assuming skypeforlinux is the name of the package).

[gmach24]

I haven't removed Skype. Wasn't sure what I was going to do. Thanks for the information.

[gmach24]

You don't have to uninstall skype just because there are no more updates for it via dnf. I have a number of packages in F40 that stopped getting updates long ago, including one from F9. Packages get abandoned and no longer maintained—it happens all the time.

To avoid the dnf errors there are several ways you can do that. For example, the repo that provides skype should have a file in /etc/yum.repos.d, possibly called "skype-stable.repo" or "microsoft-skype" (I don't know if that is the name, you'll have to check). Assuming no other applications are provided by that repo that you want to keep, you can either delete that file or set "enabled=0" in the file where currently it has "enabled=1". You could also run "dnf config-manager --set-disabled <name_of_the_repo>" as root (e.g. "dnf config-manager --set-disabled skype-stable"). Another way is to set "excludepkgs=skypeforlinux" in the /etc/dnf/dnf.conf file (assuming skypeforlinux is the name of the package).

So, to complete this thread I should say how I resolved this issue.

I checked the file you mentioned in /etc/yum.repos.d it is called yum.skype-stable.repo

That file looked like this:

 
[skype-stable]
name=skype (stable)
baseurl=https://repo.skype.com/rpm/stable/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repo.skype.com/data/SKYPE-GPG-KEY

As suggested, I changed

enabled=1

to

enabled=0

To paraphrase Bob Dylan, that file used to go like that, now it goes like this:

[skype-stable]
name=skype (stable)
baseurl=https://repo.skype.com/rpm/stable/
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repo.skype.com/data/SKYPE-GPG-KEY

Ran dnf update and upgrade and everything went well, skipping the Skype repo.

I might have made this too detailed but I remember when I was starting out with Linux/Fedora and I wanted to know exactly what was happening and what to do and what files would look like. So, I erred on the side of overkill.

Thanks again.