Do you have a ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf? If so, what are the contents?
If not, create it and add this to it:
keyserver hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
You might need to kill these guys off for it to take effect:
killall gpg-agent dirmngr
Then try refreshing keys again.
You can also try a different keyserver. I added that info here: