Updates will not complete in Ubuntu 11.1o

> fails to update due to "failed to download repository information".

Please close all package management GUIs and open a terminal: ctrl+alt+t
Enter:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Please post complete output here, thanks.

This did not work Sam. Here is the sudo dialog: Using: sudo apt-get update

Err http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Sources
  404 Not Found
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/multiverse Translation-en
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/restricted Translation-en
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric-backports/universe Translation-en
Err http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main amd64 Packages
  404 Not Found
Err http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main i386 Packages
  404 Not Found
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric/main Translation-en
Fetched 72 B in 3s (22 B/s)
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sevenmachines/flash/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/source/Sources 404 Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sevenmachines/flash/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sevenmachines/flash/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/binary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
stetsujin269@stetsujin269-XPS-8300:~$

Using: sudo apt-get upgrade

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
stetsujin269@stetsujin269-XPS-8300:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
stetsujin269@stetsujin269-XPS-8300:~$

The message after trying Update Manager:

W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sevenmachines/flash/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/source/Sources 404 Not Found
, W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sevenmachines/flash/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found
, W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/sevenmachines/flash/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/main/binary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found
, E:Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Yep, just another ppa issue.
They're outdated, 'sevenmachines' isn't necessary since adobe-flash 64-bit is available from official repositories and multiarch was introduced.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2011-March/032750.html

For the future, before upgrading disable or remove ppa sources it'll save trouble in advance.

If the output from #2 is indeed the complete output from apt-get update then it's rather less and your sources.list seems to be a mess.
Open sources.list via terminal:
gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and out comment all lines which content 'ppa' with a hash '#'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_symbol

in case compare your sources.list with this example:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/785024/

When finished save and close the file, then update again via terminal:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

In case of errors please post complete output again, thanks.

If uncertain you can also paste the content of your sources.list there.
http://paste.ubuntu.com/

Is this supposed to be help? If it is, it is of no help to me. I did state that I am not a computer expert, I am a new user to Ubuntu. Could you translate all of that into English? If you are not willing to help me please do not respond and let someone else. I have heard that the Ubuntu community is a good one. I have yet to discover that.

@ Steve Fiorito

No need to be angry.Sam gave you good advice.In case you can not follow what he advice just say so.Other way to do what Sam propose is to open synaptic package manager ( it doesn´t come by default in 11.10 so install it with

sudo apt-get synaptic )

In synaptic>repositories>other software ( I don´t know exact name because I don´t use English version) uncheck PPA witch give you problem.Reload (or refresh).That way you will remove PPA from your source list and that is exactly same thing Sam was told you,but in different words.

Thanks ivicakolic for your clear instructions. I tried to install the synaptic package manager using your instructions, but the "sudo password" (root password?) that I entered was not recognized. I tried using my log in password (the only one that I have) and that did not work. The updates always worked normally in the previous versions of Ubuntu, but I started having problems when Ubuntu updated to version 11.10. I sent you a personal email with more details. Thanks.

Your login password should work.If you have problem with it,I recommend to open new thread.That way all people witch try to help you will know what kind of problem do you have and it will help other people with same issue.After that we can back to your original problem if that is O.K. with you.

Thanks for the hints.

I have the same problem, but interestingly the offending repositories do not appear in my sources.list file.
I even stripped that right back to the official one (from http://repogen.simplylinux.ch/generate.php) and still had the same problem.

However, following ivicakolic's suggestions and disabling the missing repositories in synaptic solved the problem.

It is very confusing, though, that a one-to-one correspondence between synaptics list and /etc/sources.list doesn't appear to be kept any more, so I can understand why many would get stuck in this problem.

Cheers
Ole Nielsen