ERROR:
Could not find out latest Tor Browser version! Excessive version string length. (323 characters) Either check.torproject.org has been compromised or this is a Whonix bug.
Possible reasons:
The download server is down.
File size exceeded (endless data attack triggered).
Tor Browser Downloader (by Whonix developers) has been broken due to upstream changes.
Recommendations:
Try again later. If the error persists it probably won’t solve itself before the next update.
This bug also arises when updating qubes-whonix workstation template, after installing the latest point release to fix the recent apt vulnerability. An older tor version is supplied by qubesctl, so I updated tor using the internal updater.
Please forgive my ignorance, but I’m not sure where to perform these instructions.
For example, I applied Patrick’s advice–which seemed to work–in the whonix ws template vm, but then running the anon-whonix torbrowser browser, I found even after a restart that it kept dying on this error.
Where does one normally apply instructions such as these? (My first thought was “in the template vm,” because I thought the app vms don’t persist changes…)
If you are referring to manual Tor Browser download this is done in the AppVM.
No worries you are in the right place since this bug affects all platforms i.e. Qubes-Whonix, Non-Qubes-Whonix. There is also a Qubes-Whonix forum if you want to take a look: