[Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

barronmo · 2013-12-14 04:55:16

I've been working on repairing my system after I messed up the filesystem issue and ended up unable to boot. Using a usb installation disk I've managed to clean up my system using the FIX GUIDE. I'm at the last step...

pacman --root /mnt -Su
error: failed retrieving file 'flashplugin-11...Failed writing body

I understand this means I may be out of disk space. However, df -h shows:

/dev/sda4 247G 18G 217G 8% /mnt

I am interpreting this to mean I've only used 8% of the /dev/sda4 partition. This is where the operating system is. Why shouldn't there be plenty of room?

Last edited by barronmo (2014-01-01 16:27:59)

karol · 2013-12-14 07:28:03

Is your package database up to date? flashplugin has been recently updated and you might be trying to download the old version that is not present on the mirrors anymore https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=flashplugin , thus you get 'error: failed retrieving file 'flashplugin-11...'.

barronmo · 2013-12-29 00:16:14

I tried to update the package databse by using the mirrorlist generator and removed everything in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist except the following:

Server = http://mirrors.aggregate.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://archlinux.surlyjake.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://cake.lib.fit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

I get the following error.

pacman -Syy
error: GPGME error: No data
...
error: failed to update core (invalid or corrupted databse (PGP signature)
...

I found a post that indicated I might need to update keys but

pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinux

resulted in the same errors.

barronmo · 2014-01-01 03:54:14

I found this http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=24102 which suggested the problem was with one of the mirrors. I deleted that mirror from /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and it seemed to solve the problem. No more 'GPGME...'; however, I am now getting an error stating that the partition is too full.

I know this isn't true because

df -h

shows I have only used 8% of the space on the current partition. It appears that the installation disk is trying to put the updates somewhere they won't fit. My guess is that I am messing step #2 of the FIX GUIDE. I only have one partition for the whole system located at /dev/sda4. From the usb installation disk I used

mount /dev/sda4 /mnt

to mount the partition. I confirmed I can see all my folders using

ls /mnt/home/mb

Interestingly, I picked out a couple packages to test updating them individually. This appeared to work just fine.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

ewaller · 2014-01-01 04:11:46

It is not clear what you mean by, "the current partition". The pacman cache is in /var. It is likely that is part of your / partition.
Please post your full output of df -h and of mount

Edit: Also, it looks like you are trying to run pacman from the install disk after having mounted the partition. That is not going to work. You must set up and use chroot environment before running pacman on your installation when booting from the install media. What instructions are you following?

Last edited by ewaller (2014-01-01 04:15:26)

barronmo · 2014-01-01 04:42:58

Here's the output from df -h:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
dev/mapper/arch_root-image 1.4G 645M 686M 49% /
dev 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /dev
run 1.6G 22M 1.6G 2% /run
/dev/sdb1 522M 522M 0 100% /run/archiso/bootmnt
cowspace 2.4G 14M 2.4G 1% /run/archiso/cowspace
/dev/loop0 220M 220M 0 100% /run/archiso/sfs/root-image
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /tmp
tmpfs 1.6G 856K 1.6G 1% /etc/pacman.d/gnupg
/dev/sda4 247G 18G 217G 8% /mnt

ewaller · 2014-01-01 04:55:02

Well, there's your problem....
You booted from the install media and mounted your root partition of your installation under mount -- then you tried to run pacman. You are trying to update the packages on the iso. Probably not going to work.

You need to use a Change Root environment. In that case, you boot from the iso and are running the iso's kernel. Then, you mount the required partitions and change root such that you are "inside" your environment -- in that environment the root '/' will refer to your /dev/sda4 partition, not to the 1.4G iso image (the first line of your df-h output)

barronmo · 2014-01-01 05:11:42

Here is the output from 'mount':

proc on /proc type proc (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime)
sys on /sys tpe sysfs (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=1654060k,nr_inodes=211688,ode=755)
run /run type tmpfs (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime,mode=755)
/dev/sdb1 on /run/archiso/bootmnt type iso9660 (ro relatime)
cowspace on /run/archiso/cowspace type tmpfs (rw,relatime, size=2495108K,mode=755)
/dev/loop0 on /run/archiso/sfs/root-image type squashes (ro, relatime)
/dev/mapper/arch_root-image on / type ext4 (rw, relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgrouip type tmpfs (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, xattr, release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, cpuacct, cpu)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, net_cls)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw, nosuid, nodev, noexec, relatime, blkio)
system-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=25,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw, relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw, relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw, relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /etc/pacman.d/gnupg type tmpfs (rw,relatime,mode=755)
/dev/sda4 on /mnt type ext3 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

Sorry for any typos.

ewaller · 2014-01-01 05:16:56

You are not reading my posts, are you? You need to set up a chroot environment.

Edit: Wait a minute -- did you type that by hand. If so, pardon my frustration. You may have been typing while I was posting

Last edited by ewaller (2014-01-01 05:18:34)

fetyr2004 · 2014-01-01 06:39:25

when you've mounted everything, you need to use the chroot command

arch-chroot /mnt

barronmo · 2014-01-01 16:27:23

Sorry, you asked for two things and it took me a while to type the second one out. The chroot command did work. My system is back up and running. Thanks very much for your help. Solved!

Arch Linux

#1 2013-12-14 04:55:16

[Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#2 2013-12-14 07:28:03

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#3 2013-12-29 00:16:14

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#4 2014-01-01 03:54:14

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#5 2014-01-01 04:11:46

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#6 2014-01-01 04:42:58

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#7 2014-01-01 04:55:02

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#8 2014-01-01 05:11:42

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#9 2014-01-01 05:16:56

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#10 2014-01-01 06:39:25

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

#11 2014-01-01 16:27:23

Re: [Solved] Pacman failure from USB installation media

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