On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 08:00:07PM +0200, Joseph Vidal-Rosset wrote:
> Hi again,
> 
> Many thanks for your reply. Here are the details requested. 
> 
> Le lun.  07/27/20 juil. 2020 à  07:27:42 , tomas@tuxteam.de a  envoyé ce
> message:
> > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 07:13:42PM +0200, Joseph Vidal-Rosset wrote:
> >> Thanks  for your  help,  Tomas,  here is  the  beginning  of my  init.el
> >> (suggestions to improve it are of course welcome):
> >
> > Caveat: as I said, I'm most probably not the right guy to answer that, but
> > hey.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >> ;; Configure Emacs package manager. Not required anymore on Emacs > 27
> >> (if (version< emacs-version "27")
> >>                                         (package-initialize)  )
> >> (require 'package)
> >> (setq package-archives
> >>       '(("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")
> >>         ("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/")
> >>         ("org" . "https://orgmode.org/elpa/")
> >>        ; ("gnu" . "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
> >> 	))
> >
> > This might be the relevant tidbit. But still, we don't know what version
> > your Emacs is, and thus whether this code is actually relevant or not.
> 
> joseph@mx:~$ emacs --version
> GNU Emacs 26.1

OK. So this variable is being read, probably (since 26.1 < 27), but...

> > What is the actual value of your variable `package-archives' [...]

> > Emacs   running   instance?  Try   doing   C-h   v  and   then   enter
> > `package-archives'.
> 
> package-archives’s value is
> (("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")
>  ("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/")
>  ("org" . "https://orgmode.org/elpa/")
>  ("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/"))
> Original value was 
> (("gnu" . "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/"))

[...]

...but the actual variable's value has been "augmented" by a
(second) entry for "melpa", mapping to "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/".

This one fails for me trying to resolve the name (host melpa.milkbox.net
is unknown to (at least my) DNS).

> > Are those sites reachable from your place? I.e. try something like

> joseph@mx:~$  curl -I https://stable.melpa.org/packages/
> HTTP/1.1 200 OK

[...]

Yes, this one works for me, too. But the milkbox one doesn't.
Now I have no idea what "update packages" will do in such a
case (and having two entries tagged with the same name looks
suspect too).

When you do the "describe variable" thing, there is a link in the
variable description "You can [customize] this variable" (actually
there are no square brackets there, it's my way to suggest that
this text looks different. Click on this link (or just put point
on it and hit ENTER) and you'll get a customization page. Try
to remove that milkbox entry.

Cheers
-- t