Updating

[jdtexas]

I am very new to Linux. Mint worked great for a while, but now when notified of available updates, I receive this message when the updater tries to retreive the packages:
W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/ ... 1_i386.deb
Could not connect to localhost:4001 (127.0.0.1). - connect (111 Connection refused)
Not sure what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Boo]

Can you install applications via synaptic?

do you have a firewall setup on the pc?
the message is saying that it can not connect to port 4001 on your computer.
turn off the firewall and see if it works then.

what happens if you untick the rsync package in the updater and do an update?

[scorp123]

Could not connect to localhost:4001 (127.0.0.1). - connect (111 Connection refused)

Could it be that you used your own host (= 127.0.0.1) as proxy somehow?

[jdtexas]

Thanks for the suggestions, but no go so far.

I disabled the firewall. Made no difference. I tried the Synaptic package handler. It gives the same error message the updater displays. I checked to see if the 127.0.0.1 address was listed as a proxy. It was. I deleted it but still it will not work. I am sure there is some crucial piece I am leaving out. I am using a wireless connection at home, a wired connection at work. Results are the same for both places.
I unchecked the rsync package, but still the same results. Getting frustrated!

[scorp123]

I checked to see if the 127.0.0.1 address was listed as a proxy. It was. I deleted it

So if you used your own host as a proxy so maybe you also used some sort of proxy process somewhere somehow in the past? e.g. 'squid' or something like that?

As I see it your problem is this:

For reasons you did not state yet you configured your own machine as proxy and you had it running on port 4001; hence all the package managers accessed their repos via this host:port combination. But now: Somehow you stopped the proxy from working, e.g. either by reconfiguring it or by removing it from your system. But your package managers are still pointing at the --now defunct-- proxy, hence you get this error message: "Could not connect to localhost:4001 (127.0.0.1). - connect (111 Connection refused)"

So as I see it you have to completely remove any remaining references to the proxy and access the repos (and everything else?) directly. Then it should work.