[R-package] [ci] miktex downloads failing

[jameslamb]

I see this error in the three Windows, R, MINGW jobs CI jobs.

Downloading https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/releases/download/v2.0.12/miktexsetup-4.0-x64.zip
Setting up MiKTeX
miktexsetup.exe: The remote package repository is outdated. You have to choose another repository.
miktexsetup.exe: Data: url="https://ctan.math.illinois.edu/systems/win32/miktex/tm/packages/"

I've seen this error consistently over the last 24 hours, so I don't think it's temporary. These academic mirrors can have very long downtime periods...I am going to switch to another one.

[jameslamb]

hmmmm actually, http://dante.ctan.org/mirmon/ says that the U of I mirror was updated three hours ago 🤔

[jameslamb]

I just tried re-running the tests on #3452 and still see these errors

https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/pull/3452/checks?check_run_id=1245533474

[jameslamb]

I think this is just a thing that happens with CTAN a few times a year and we have to wait another day for it to hopefully improve :/

• November 2016: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/337888/i-keep-being-told-the-remote-package-repository-is-outdated
• June 2018: All remote package repository are 'outdated' MiKTeX/miktex#49 (comment)

I do see that there was a new minor release, miktex 20.10, two days ago: https://github.com/MiKTeX/miktex/releases. The first reported case of this issue that I saw in LightGBM was yesterday (#3452 (comment)), and we have not had a build of master in two days.

So I think it's possible that this new miktex release has broken things again 🙃

[jameslamb]

I just re-ran the CI on #3452 and it is all passing now. So I think my theory that this was just an issue that would resolve itself was correct.

I'm going to close this

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity since it was closed. To start a new related discussion, open a new issue at https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/issues including a reference to this.