mjhjmtu

What is the problem I am having with command-not-found? Is it a known bug?

$ dpkg-query --show command-not-found
command-not-found 0.2.38-4

$ installme
Could not find the list of available applications, run update-command-not-found as root to fix this
installme: command not found

$ sudo update-command-not-found

This command returns after less than a second, and does not actually help:

$ installme
Could not find the list of available applications, run update-command-not-found as root to fix this
installme: command not found

$ sudo strace -f update-command-not-found
...
open("/usr/lib/python2.7/fnmatch.pyc", O_RDONLY) = 5
fstat(5, st_mode=S_IFREG) = 0
read(5, "3363rn250321200Xc4@sad"..., 4096) = 3602
fstat(5, st_mode=S_IFREG) = 0
read(5, "", 4096) = 0
close(5) = 0
close(4) = 0
close(3) = 0
open("/var/lib/apt/lists", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_DIRECTORY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
fstat(3, 0755, st_size=4096, ...) = 0
getdents(3, /* 21 entries */, 32768) = 1584
getdents(3, /* 0 entries */, 32768) = 0
close(3) = 0
umask(022) = 022
rt_sigaction(SIGINT, sa_handler=SIG_DFL, sa_mask=, sa_flags=SA_RESTORER, sa_restorer=0x7fc5a847c0c0, sa_handler=0x5633718d3e60, sa_mask=, sa_flags=SA_RESTORER, sa_restorer=0x7fc5a847c0c0, 8) = 0
brk(0x563372c40000) = 0x563372c40000
munmap(0x7fc5a7180000, 262144) = 0
exit_group(0) = ?
+++ exited with 0 +++

See Debian bug #857090.

This seems to be the case when you run update-command-not-found
without any Contents-file downloaded. If you run "apt update" after
installation it works without problems.

I think update-command-not-found should make it clearer that you need
to update the apt-cache prior to running it.