How to fix winget when it’s throwing a “0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing”?

This post was most recently updated on April 15th, 2024.

This article offers a couple of different ways to fix the “0x8a15000f” error that winget might throw at you in seemingly random situations. It’s a great tool especially for headless scenarios on Windows, but this was an odd one – and required an odd solution.

Background

Another day, another headache with a tool that usually “just works”.

I was trying to install kubectl using winget on a machine where I didn’t have a convenient desktop environment (don’t question it). To do this, I was running something like this:

winget install -e --id Kubernetes.kubectl

But I immediately ran into issues.

Problem

The error is partially localized. I’ll probably paste a few alternate translations at the bottom of the article, but the bottom line is that you’ll get an error like this:

0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing

This was odd.

Here’s a sample of the longer error message you might get:

Failed when searching source: winget
An unexpected error occurred while executing the command:
0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing

Failed when opening source(s); try the 'source reset' command if the problem persists.
An unexpected error occurred while executing the command:
0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing

Odd. Running winget sources didn’t return anything too out-of-the-ordinary for me, either:

winget source list
Name    Argument
-----------------------------------------------------
msstore https://storeedgefd.dsx.mp.microsoft.com/v9.0
winget  https://cdn.winget.microsoft.com/cache

No matter, we’ll figure out a way to fix it.

Solution

Let’s get to it, then! Below, I’ve written some things you can try. As is somewhat usual with my guides and how-tos, it was the last step that worked for me – but I tried all the earlier steps for a good reason (someone somewhere said they should work), so I’m documenting them for you too.

References

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/import-module?view=powershell-7.3#-usewindowspowershell
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_windows_powershell_compatibility?view=powershell-7.3

And yes, the winget logo is designed by Bingbot. It got really inspired by the wings so I couldn’t force it to NOT produce some sort of bird design again and again.

Sample errors

Echec lors de la recherche de la source : winget.
Une erreur inattendue s'est produite lors de I'exécution de la commande
0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing
Aucun package n'a été trouvé parmi les sources de travail.

Failed when opening source(s); try the 'source reset' command if the problem persists.
An unexpected error occurred while executing the command:
0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing

无法打开源; 如果问题仍然存在，请尝试“source reset”命令。
执行此命令时发生意外错误：
0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing

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Antti K. Koskela

Developer / Speaker / Consultant at Koskila / Precio Fishbone / Norppandalotti Software Co / Alter - Experience Ideas Ltd

Antti Koskela is a proud digital native nomadic millennial full stack developer (is that enough funny buzzwords? That's definitely enough funny buzzwords!), who works as Solutions Architect for Precio Fishbone, building delightful Digital Workplaces.

He's been a developer from 2004 (starting with PHP and Java), and he's been working on .NET projects, Azure, Office 365, SharePoint and a lot of other stuff. He's also Microsoft MVP for Azure.

This is his personal professional (e.g. professional, but definitely personal) blog.

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