Error updating emacs packages: Failed to download 'gnu' archive

Question

My init.el uses this to initialize packages:

(package-initialize)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/"))
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/"))
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa-stable" . "http://melpa-stable.milkbox.net/packages/"))

When I do M-x package-refresh-contents I get the following error: Failed to download `gnu' archive.

M-x toggle-debug-on-error gives me this stacktrace:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Failed to verify signature archive-contents.sig: (\"No public key for 474F05837FBDEF9B created at 2014-09-29T07:20:03-0700 using DSA\")")
  signal(error ("Failed to verify signature archive-contents.sig: (\"No public key for 474F05837FBDEF9B created at 2014-09-29T07:20:03-0700 using DSA\")"))
  error("Failed to verify signature %s: %S" "archive-contents.sig" ("No public key for 474F05837FBDEF9B created at 2014-09-29T07:20:03-0700 using DSA"))
  package--check-signature("http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/" "archive-contents")
  package--download-one-archive(("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") "archive-contents")

Is this a problem with my configuration, and how would I fix it?

Answer 1

Looks like a bug in your version of Emacs. You can probably circumvent it by setting package-check-signature to nil.