Error: Release File is Not Valid Yet During Devcontainer Setup in WSL2 (on a Windows Machine)

[kmalkow]

While setting up a devcontainer environment in WSL2 (Windows with Ubuntu 20.04), you may encounter errors like:
E: Release file for http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/jammy-security/InRelease is not valid yet (invalid for another 1h 17min 54s). Updates for this repository will not be applied.
E: Release file for http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/jammy-updates/InRelease is not valid yet (invalid for another 1h 19min 12s). Updates for this repository will not be applied.

This is often followed by:
ERROR [dev_container_auto_added_stage_label 5/7] RUN apt-get update

These errors prevent the container from updating its package lists, leading to failures when it tries to install dependencies.

[kmalkow]

Cause of the Error:
This error message indicates that the release files for the Ubuntu (WSL2) package repositories are considered "not valid yet" because of a time mismatch between your system clock and the repository servers. This can happen if:

• Your system time is incorrect or out of sync with the real-world time.
• The time zone settings on your system are misconfigured.
• There is a temporary issue with the repository server's release files.

Steps to Fix the Error:

1. Check and Sync Your System Time:
   Please make sure that your system clock is correctly set and synchronized with the internet time servers. In WSL2, you can manually sync the time using the following commands:
   sudo apt-get install ntpdate
sudo ntpdate time.windows.com

2. Retry the Update Command Manually:
   After syncing the time, try rerunning the update command: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install

3. Restart Visual Studio Code:
   Restart Visual Studio Code by navigating to the repository directory and executing code .