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#1 2009-11-24 23:09:49

jac
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From: /home/jac
Registered: 2009-05-19
Posts: 431
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Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

Long story short: If I did something that caused pacman to never think there are new updates, how do I fix it? I've tried:
- changing mirrors (same results, no new packages)
- syncing the database from mirror.archlinux.com (ditto)
- forcing a resync (says it is doing everything normally, but then there are no new packages)
- manually updating a package that is known to have a new version in the repo (tried with iproute2, said it was downloading iproute2-2.6.29-2-x, should it have had a 2 or 3 there instead of an x? I never payed close enough attention before)
- tried installing a package I didn't have before (hit-and-miss? It looks like I can install somethings, such as pcmanfm, but when I tried to install kcm_touchpad, it didn't know it existed)
Absolutely nothing works for updating my computer anymore. Any ideas?

Long story: I tried to use expect the other day, it apparently created massive logs (in everything.log, kernel.log, and messages.log) which filled up my root partition. The messages all say "Nov 20 06:58:31 Vladimir kernel: tty_release_dev: pts12: read/write wait queue active!" or they have that, but it is chopped off and skips to the ! after a few characters. On that second alone, there are 18220 messages in everything.log sad Ever since then, as best as I can tell, my computer does no updating. I've known that the root partition filling up causes problems if it happens while you're updating, but this didn't happen anywhere near me updating anything except for expect. So, my question is, after clearing out more space, it really shouldn't be that, correct? If it is, is there someway to repair the database, or something?

I can post my mirrorlist file, or my pacman.conf, whatever is needed. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

Last edited by jac (2009-11-25 14:45:42)

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#2 2009-11-24 23:34:06

quarkup
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From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-09-07
Posts: 497
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Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

check the logs speccially the pacman.log for things you may have removed meanwhile that you needed.

install everything from core (you certainly won't need but its faster than installling arch again)

have you tried to pacman-optimize ??

use pacman -Scc (say 'y'/'Y' to every question)

and then use pacman -Syy


If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

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#3 2009-11-24 23:36:07

MadTux
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Registered: 2009-09-20
Posts: 553

Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

Did you check that the mirror you are using is up-to-date?

https://users.archlinux.de/~gerbra/mirrorcheck.html

Pacman will try the first mirror (from top of the list) in your mirrorlist and if that is not synched you won't get updates.
Also, did you

pacman -Syyu

after changing mirrors in order to force pacman to fully synch with the new mirror?

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#4 2009-11-25 00:21:15

jac
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From: /home/jac
Registered: 2009-05-19
Posts: 431
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Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

@quarkup: How do I install an entire repo? I figured out how to re-install the base group, but I can't get the regex to get just the core repo. I've cleared the cache, that didn't help either. Neither did force-refreshing after that. You probably hit on something, pacman-optimize does some interesting things, it gives:

[root@Vladimir ~]# pacman-optimize 
==> MD5sum'ing the old database...
==> Tar'ing up /var/lib/pacman...
==> Making and MD5sum'ing the new database...
==> Syncing database to disk...
==> Checking integrity...
==> Rotating database into place...
mv: cannot move `/var/lib/pacman' to `/var/lib/pacman.old': Device or resource busy
mv: inter-device move failed: `/var/lib/pacman.new' to `/var/lib/pacman/pacman.new'; unable to remove target: Is a directory
chmod: failed to get attributes of `/var/lib/pacman.old': No such file or directory
chown: failed to get attributes of `/var/lib/pacman.old': No such file or directory
==> ERROR: New database substitution failed. Check for /var/lib/pacman,
/var/lib/pacman.old, and /var/lib/pacman.new directories.

The inter-device move failed reminded me that I had done a pacman-cage. Thought maybe I had to uncage it first, but that gives me:

[root@Vladimir ~]# pacman-uncage 
==> md5sum'ing the old database...
==> copying pacman.db contents back, note: the time needed to get a brew is now.
mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/lib/pacman.new': File exists
==> unmounting old dbroot and moving new one in
==> md5sum'ing the new database...
==> checking integrity...
pacman-uncage: integrity check FAILED, reverting to old database

So, does this mean that the filesystem or whatever pacman-cage creates has become corrupted? It looks like my fstab is still intact, so it should be mounting pacman.db properly as far as I can tell. Relevant line is:

/var/lib/pacman.db /var/lib/pacman ext2 loop,defaults 0 0

Does that look OK to you? Is this just as simple as some directories got left over that shouldn't have? /var/lib/pacman exists, there is a /var/lib/pacman.bak directory, and the pacman.db file in there too.

@MadTux: My mirror is up to date, according to that. Last synced zero hours and minutes ago. Also, the problem persists while using powerpill. Yep, that is what I meant by forcing a resync, sorry.

Thanks for all of your help!

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#5 2009-11-25 00:49:48

quarkup
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From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-09-07
Posts: 497
Website

Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

I have got no pacman-cage or pacman-uncage !!

I'm using an official repo. check if you are using one.
unless my repo is not syncing all packages which i doubt happens that i cannot find the pacman-cage or pacman-uncage in the repo's

check what is it's package please,
pacman -Qo $(which pacman-uncage)
pacman -Qo $(which pacman-cage)


If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

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#6 2009-11-25 10:07:50

jac
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From: /home/jac
Registered: 2009-05-19
Posts: 431
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Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

I know it's not in the official repos, and to be honest when I started using it I didn't know enough about package builds to have pacman know anything about it. I am using an official repo though. Because I didn't make a package build for it, pacman says no package owns it, like it should. See here: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=20385 about exactly what it is. I'm pretty sure I was linked to that from the pacman optimization wiki page

Thans again for your help

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#7 2009-11-25 21:16:22

quarkup
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2008-09-07
Posts: 497
Website

Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

you may need to check that topic and ask for the script's creator how to deal with this issue.

Certainly you'll get his/her attention and also warning that his code/script may have a bug/flaw.

good luck there.


If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

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#8 2009-11-26 15:22:39

jac
Member
From: /home/jac
Registered: 2009-05-19
Posts: 431
Website

Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

OK, thanks for your help. I found through some reading that the script is now in an aur package, but looking at the comments there it doesn't look like I'll be able to get much help. I re-installed, and that fixed it, obviously smile I'm going to look at the script and see the other topic and try to work out a quicker solution in case I or someone else runs into this problem in the future.

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#9 2009-12-12 01:14:09

megajosh2
Member
Registered: 2009-04-15
Posts: 57

Re: Pacman won't update anything after attempting to use 'expect'

I also have this problem. Haven't updated for maybe a month or more because of it. sad What's pacman-optimize and pacman-uncage going to do to solve this problem? By the way, that mirror check page is broken.


Edit: Looks like my first mirror was broken.

Last edited by megajosh2 (2009-12-12 01:16:50)

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