E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found.

Problem:
I was getting the following error when trying to install Wireshark

E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found.

# apt-get install wireshark
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libc-ares2 libsmi2ldbl libwireshark-data libwireshark5 libwiretap4
libwsutil4 wireshark-common
Suggested packages:
snmp-mibs-downloader wireshark-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libc-ares2 libsmi2ldbl libwireshark-data libwireshark5 libwiretap4
libwsutil4 wireshark wireshark-common
0 upgraded, 8 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 13.4 MB/13.6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 78.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
libsmi2ldbl libc-ares2 libwsutil4 libwiretap4 libwireshark-data
libwireshark5 wireshark-common wireshark
Install these packages without verification? [y/N] y
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main libwsutil4 amd64 1.12.4+gb4861da-1
404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main libwiretap4 amd64 1.12.4+gb4861da-1
404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main libwireshark-data all 1.12.4+gb4861da-1
404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main libwireshark5 amd64 1.12.4+gb4861da-1
404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main wireshark-common amd64 1.12.4+gb4861da-1
404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main wireshark amd64 1.12.4+gb4861da-1
404 Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wireshark/libwsutil4_1.12.4+gb4861da-1_amd64.deb 404 Not Found

E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wireshark/libwiretap4_1.12.4+gb4861da-1_amd64.deb 404 Not Found

E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wireshark/libwireshark-data_1.12.4+gb4861da-1_all.deb 404 Not Found

E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wireshark/libwireshark5_1.12.4+gb4861da-1_amd64.deb 404 Not Found

E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wireshark/wireshark-common_1.12.4+gb4861da-1_amd64.deb 404 Not Found

E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wireshark/wireshark_1.12.4+gb4861da-1_amd64.deb 404 Not Found

E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with –fix-missing?

Then when I tried to run a apt-get update

# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.nl.debian.org jessie InRelease [134 kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease [126 kB]
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found.
N: Is the package apt-transport-https installed?

Finally when I tried to install apt-transport-https

# apt-get install apt-transport-https
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
apt-transport-https
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 137 kB of archives.
After this operation, 226 kB of additional disk space will be used.
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
apt-transport-https
Install these packages without verification? [y/N] y
Err http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/ testing/main apt-transport-https amd64 1.0.9.9
404 Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apt/apt-transport-https_1.0.9.9_amd64.deb 404 Not Found

E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with –fix-missing?

Solution:
I edited /etc/apt/sources.list

I remove references to ftp.it.debian.org and added ftp.us.debian.org

I then ran
# apt-get check

That seemed to fix it. I was then able to run
# apt-get update
# apt-get install apt-transport-https
# apt-get install wireshark

In retrospect
I did google the error but the issues that other users were reporting were not related to mine. I think that the main issue was that the ftp.it.debian.org site I was using was not available. Thus the 404 errors that I was getting. The issue was staring me in the face 🙂