Arch Linux

sessy

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 104

[solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

I don't remember doing anything special or unusual with pacman, but it started to act strange: seems like it forgot which packages are already installed.

An example with firefox:

karel ~ > which firefox
/usr/bin/firefox

So it's installed.

karel ~ > sudo pacman -Rsn firefox
loading package data...
error: 'firefox': could not find or read package

... but Pacman doesn't know about it.

When I try to reinstall it:

karel ~ > sudo pacman -S firefox
resolving dependencies...
warning: dependency cycle detected:
warning: pam will be installed before its db dependency
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets: glib2-2.16.3-1  atk-1.22.0-1  libpng-1.2.28-1  libxau-1.0.3-1  xproto-7.0.11-1  libxdmcp-1.0.2-1  xcb-proto-1.1-1
         libxcb-1.1-1  kbproto-1.0.3-1  inputproto-1.4.2.1-1  bigreqsproto-1.0.2-1  libx11-1.1.3-6  renderproto-0.9.3-1
         libxrender-0.9.4-1  expat-2.0.1-1  freetype2-2.3.5-1  fontconfig-2.5.0-1  pixman-0.10.0-1  cairo-1.6.4-1
         libxft-2.1.12-1  libdatrie-0.1.2-1  libthai-0.1.9-1  pango-1.20.2-2  xextproto-7.0.2-1  fixesproto-4.0-2
         libxfixes-4.0.3-1  libxcursor-1.1.9-1  libxext-1.0.4-1  xineramaproto-1.1.2-1  libxinerama-1.0.2-1
         randrproto-1.2.1-1  libxrandr-1.2.2-1  libxi-1.1.3-1  libgpg-error-1.6-1  libgcrypt-1.4.0-1.1  opencdk-0.6.6-1
         libtasn1-1.3-1  lzo2-2.02-3  gnutls-2.0.4-1  libjpeg-6b-4  libtiff-3.8.2-3  cracklib-2.8.10-5  pam-1.0.1-1
         shadow-4.0.18.2-2  coreutils-6.11-1  db-4.6.21-2  openssl-0.9.8g-2  e2fsprogs-1.40.8-1  heimdal-1.0.1-2
         libcups-1.3.7-1  compositeproto-0.4-1  libxcomposite-0.4.0-1  damageproto-1.1.0-1  libxdamage-1.1.1-1
         gtk2-2.12.9-2  libice-1.0.4-1  libsm-1.0.3-1  libxt-1.0.5-1  libidl2-0.8.10-1  mozilla-common-1.1-2  nspr-4.7-1
         nss-3.11.9-1  desktop-file-utils-0.14-1  firefox-2.0.0.14-1

Total Download Size:    0.00 MB
Total Installed Size:   45.99 MB

Ooops

Continuing the install gives error messages beacuse of the files already present. I hesitate to --force it.

Last edited by sessy (2008-05-23 12:13:30)

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

pacman stores all its db information for your local system in /var/lib/pacman/local - if, for some reason, that folder is empty, or pacman can't read from it, then it won't know what's installed anymore.

Demind

Member

Registered: 2007-07-10

Posts: 111

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Continuing the install gives error messages beacuse of the files already present. I hesitate to --force it.

Force without problems.
I've had the same issue a couple of week ago whenm i've lost my pacman db...a thing you can do is open pacman.log (/var/log/pacman.log) and find what has been installed so far.

ybotspawn

Member

From: Oz

Registered: 2008-04-06

Posts: 140

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Just curious but will a pacman sync fix a lost pacman database?  Or could you somehow resconstruct it from the log file?

---

"As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway,
why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. "

bender02

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 1,328

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Nope, sync will not restore the database of what's installed. You expect the mirrors to know what's on your computer?

EDIT: yea, log file. There's been a script posted on the forum that takes the log file and outputs the installed packages. http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=29629 It's also in the pactools package.

Last edited by bender02 (2008-05-20 14:31:18)

ybotspawn

Member

From: Oz

Registered: 2008-04-06

Posts: 140

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Thanks Bender, I'm not experiencing this problem, but it's always good to know the solution in the event it ever happens to me.

---

"As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway,
why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. "

sessy

Member

Registered: 2006-01-20

Posts: 104

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Thanks for the encouragement, --force did it

Bapman

Member

From: Ottawa, Canada

Registered: 2007-09-02

Posts: 140

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Same problem here, I lost everything in the cache only with a "yaourt -Syu". I guess that if I do a "--force" like sessy, I won't get all the database back but only the packets I force update will appear in the cache, am I right ?

Bapman

Member

From: Ottawa, Canada

Registered: 2007-09-02

Posts: 140

Re: [solved] Pacman went crazy (lost database?)

Yeah, as I expected, with "--force", only the packets installed this way are back in the database. Pacfix lists package upgraded before indeed, but what do I do with that ?

edit : hmmm, database was not mounted because I had to load "loop" module, a new thing from kernel 2.6.25 (that's why I had this problem after system upgrade). There should be an announcement for that !

Last edited by Bapman (2008-05-26 15:17:26)