I just ran into a similar issue trying to use reportbug on a computer I
installed Devuan 1.0 Stable a week ago today using the Netinstall ISO.

Here is what happened when running reportbug for the first time:

$ reportbug flashplugin-nonfree
Warning: no reportbug configuration found. Proceeding in novice mode.
Detected character set: UTF-8
Please change your locale if this is incorrect.

Using 'Nate Bargmann <nate@???>' as your from address.
Getting status for flashplugin-nonfree...
Will send report to Devuan (per lsb_release).
Querying Devuan BTS for reports on flashplugin-nonfree (source)...
Unable to connect to Devuan BTS; continue [y|N|?]? y
Maintainer for flashplugin-nonfree is 'Bart Martens <bartm@???>'.
Looking up dependencies of flashplugin-nonfree...

Briefly describe the problem (max. 100 characters allowed). This will be the bug email subject, so keep the summary as concise as possible, for example: "fails to send email" or "does
not start with -q option specified" (enter Ctrl+c to exit reportbug without reporting a bug).
>
reportbug: exiting due to user interrupt.


Nevermind that my email address is incorrect as I had not yet created a
$HOME/.reportbugrc on that computer.

I did create $HOME/.reportbugrc and uncommented the line of "bts
devuan", set my email, realname, and replyto variables and nothing else
and I still get the:

    Unable to connect to Devuan BTS; continue [y|N|?]?

error message, even on this desktop. The BTS doesn't seem to be down as
I can access it via the Web. Is there a hardcoded URL that could be
incorrect?

To recap, I originally got the "Unable to connect" message on a machine
that was a clean Devuan Jessie Stable installation. I also receive it
on a machine that was migrated over from Debian Jessie. I have
confirmed that the reportbug package is at version 6.6.3+devuan1.3 on
both computers.

- Nate

--

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us