apt autocomplete not working, displaying folders

[mitap94]

Using Ubuntu 14.04 and apt autocomplete doesn't work.

sudo apt upd...
sudo apt upg...
sudo apt install ter...
None of these commands return anything when I press tab.

If I for example type:
sudo apt install tem and press tab it will resolve to:
sudo apt install Templates/ if I am currently in the home folder. So it is behaving as if I am using cd or something like that.

The apt-get command works normally, and both commands work like they should in bash.

[DevJac]

This sounds like an issue I'm having. I have a git alias called git graph and I will type git gra and then hit tab (which would normally autocomplete the alias), and what happens instead is that one of my Python scripts runs. Fortunately it didn't run one of the scripts that launches nukes.

[mitap94]

I should add that everything works great on Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1

[zephirefaith]

Same here. Ubuntu 14.04 + oh-my-zsh messes up apt autocomplete. Shows files inside the folder instead. Did not notice this happening in Ubuntu 16.04, if that helps.

[cadebrown]

I am having this issue as well, anybody have any fixes?

[Freedzone]

Ubuntu 14.04 + oh-my-zsh + SSH - same problem. Instead of apt <command> i am getting list of folders and files

[dermalikmann]

apt completion does not work on Ubuntu 17.10 either.

[mcornella]

Can you verify if it works after upgrading with upgrade_oh_my_zsh? Perhaps you have some kind of permission problem with completion folders. If that doesn't do it, please post your zsh --version and what plugins you're using.

[mitap94]

Sorry, I'm not using Ubuntu 14.04 anymore on any PCs.

[Freedzone]

Not working for me, sorry.
zsh 5.0.2 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
plugins=(git zsh-completions)

DITRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="14.04.5 LTS, Trusty Tahr"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS"
VERSION_ID="14.04"
HOME_URL="http://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"

[mcornella]

If this is still happening, run echo $_comps[apt] and which $_comps[apt] and post the output.

[rubenanapu]

How I solved it

I had auto completion problems trying to autocomplete wget with apt-get install wg[TAB][TAB] and I managed to solve it by removing the --no-generate parameter from the flies below:

/usr/share/bash-completion/completions/apt-cache
/usr/share/bash-completion/completions/apt-get

It is worth mentioning that these files are available only after you install bash-completion.

The --no-generate parameter I'm referring to can be seen in the line below, but I removed ALL --no-generate, not only from this line:
https://github.com/scop/bash-completion/blob/master/completions/apt-get#L28

How did I come to this point?

I got to this point after running set -v previous to apt-get install wg[TAB][TAB], which showed that the command executed was:

apt-cache --no-generate pkgnames wg

and the output was an error:

E: Could not open file  - open (2: No such file or directory)

When I executed apt-cache pkgnames wg without the --no-generate I correctly got the list for autocompletion:

root@484f5c8f56ba:/# apt-cache pkgnames wg
wgalician-minimos
wget2
wgaelic
wget
wgerman-medical
wget2-dev

Hope this helps.