Update 2: This seems to be a upstream packaging issue with empty Contents-amd64.gz files in the repository. Therefore I reported a bug in Launchpad.
I'm a heavy user of apt-file. Most of the file I use it to find out about packages I need to install a specific, missing file or vice-versa find out about which package is responsible / owns a specific file.
It seems that since my last update to eoan apt-file has completely lost its functionality. It also seems to be a different implementation, because apt-file update no longer downloads those *Contents-amd64.diff.gz: Instead it does a simple apt-get update
$ sudo -H apt-file update
Hit:1 http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable InRelease
Hit:2 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu eoan InRelease
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/bit-team/testing/ubuntu eoan InRelease
Hit:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan InRelease
Hit:5 http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt wheezy InRelease
Hit:6 https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial InRelease
Hit:7 http://ppa.launchpad.net/marko-preuss/hibiscus/ubuntu eoan InRelease
Hit:8 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan-updates InRelease
Hit:9 http://ppa.launchpad.net/morphis/anbox-support/ubuntu disco InRelease
Hit:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan-security InRelease
Hit:11 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan-backports InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
Also i do no longer get any result at all…
$ apt-file search /bin/bash
$ apt-file show bash
I know about dpkg -L <x>: this i not want I need. I also do not want to leave my terminal and go web surfing.
Update
In fact it does return some results but not the complete lists. On running a simple apt-file search bash i in fact do get a few rare results from very exotic packages only
$ apt-file search bash
code: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/code
code: /usr/share/code/resources/app/extensions/emmet/node_modules/dashdash/etc/dashdash.bash_completion.in
…
code: /usr/share/code/resources/completions/bash/code
code-exploration: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/code
code-exploration: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/code-exploration
…
code-insiders: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/code
code-insiders: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/code-insiders
…
linux-tools-common: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/bpftool
Here in contrast the result on a Linux Mint 19.2 equivalent Ubuntu 18.04 installation:
$ apt-file search /bin/bash
bash: /bin/bash
bash: /usr/bin/bashbug
bash-static: /bin/bash-static
bashburn: /usr/bin/bashburn
pbh5tools: /usr/bin/bash5tools
pbh5tools: /usr/bin/bash5tools.py