problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

chickenPie4tea · 2014-09-16 09:28:21

When I type:
pacman -Syu

I get: (I am only showing 4 but there are a lot more)

error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/xorg-xkbcomp-1.2.4-2/desc: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/xorg-xmodmap-1.0.8-1/desc: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/xorg-xprop-1.2.2-1/desc: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/xorg-xpyb-git-r93.ed0147e-1/desc: No such file or directory

then i get the message:
Proceed with installation? [Y/n]
then it lists dozens of packages but I will only show you a few

xf86-video-intel: /usr/share/man/man4/intel.4.gz exists in filesystem
xf86-video-intel: /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.x.xf86-video-intel.backlight-helper.policy exists in filesystem
xorg-xinit: /usr/bin/startx exists in filesystem
xorg-xinit: /usr/bin/xinit exists in filesystem
xorg-xinit: /usr/share/licenses/xorg-xinit/COPYING exists in filesystem
xorg-xinit: /usr/share/man/man1/startx.1.gz exists in filesystem
xorg-xinit: /usr/share/man/man1/xinit.1.gz exists in filesystem

and tells me:
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

Any advice as I have read the wiki page but don't understand what to do
I have read the wiki page and
the wiki seems to suggest renaming the packages but there are a lot of them!

Scimmia · 2014-09-16 09:30:15

Sounds like your pacman database is severely damaged. The wiki entry you want is here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … stem.22.21

chickenPie4tea · 2014-09-16 09:32:18

Yes I read that part but still dont know what to do

stqn · 2014-09-16 11:03:22

Do the “desc” files exist?

Looks like pacman -Syu --force might do the trick in this particular case. The wiki page Scimmia linked to say not to do that, but without explaining why, so it’s crap advice. If pacman *can* do that then it has a use-case I’m sure.

nourathar · 2014-09-16 11:15:41

chickenPie4tea wrote:

Yes I read that part but still dont know what to do

that part tells you to do

pacman -S --force xorg-xinit
pacman -S --force xf86-video-intel

and so on for each package that gives you problems: you say you have dozens of errors; since there are multiple error messages per package it looks like it is only a handful of packages.

stqn wrote:

Do the “desc” files exist?
Looks like pacman -Syu --force might do the trick in this particular case. The wiki page Scimmia linked to say not to do that, but without explaining why, so it’s crap advice. If pacman *can* do that then it has a use-case I’m sure.

My advice would be to not do pacman -Syu --force since somebody had a good reason to explicitly put that advice on the wiki (in the context of problems such as you are having), even though I agree it would be even better if it would explain why it would be such a bad idea. Pacman has many options and I find it is perfectly reasonable within the Arch philosophy that some combinations will give you disastrous results.

Last edited by nourathar (2014-09-16 11:17:57)

stqn · 2014-09-16 11:48:27

nourathar wrote:

My advice would be to not do pacman -Syu --force since somebody had a good reason to explicitly put that advice on the wiki

I was assuming all of the OP’s packages had the problem, hence pacman -S --force’ing them one by one would be tedious and not different than a -Syu --force.

Also, since I have a couple times made useful changes to the wiki that were reverted by an idiot, I don’t trust it 100%.

Lone_Wolf · 2014-09-16 11:53:41

stqn wrote:

Do the “desc” files exist?
Looks like pacman -Syu --force might do the trick in this particular case. The wiki page Scimmia linked to say not to do that, but without explaining why, so it’s crap advice. If pacman *can* do that then it has a use-case I’m sure.

Look a bit above the part Scimmia linked to, under "general notes" .

If you want more details why "pacman -Syu --force" is a bad idea, search forum and mailing lists.

You'll find plenty of cases where doing "pacman -Syu --force" made a bad situation worse, leaving only 1 viable option : re-install from scratch.

chickenPie4tea · 2014-09-16 12:24:24

the trouble is I tried the force command on 4 packages and it did upgrade them but not without errors to do with metadata.
"warning: could not fully load metadata for package"
So I didn't want to go through package by package using the force command in case I ended up with a lot of packages with no metadata
Edit:
Well I have ended up going through the packages listed one at a time using the force command and just hope the incomplete or missing metadata doesn't cause big problems later. I couldn't see what else to do.

Last edited by chickenPie4tea (2014-09-16 12:32:45)

Kotrfa · 2016-03-09 13:57:15

I had a same problem with python2. No "desc" and "files" files. I copied them from different archlinux installation, then made "pacman -Syu python2", it gave me some warnings about "could not get file information for ***", but then everything was OK.

WorMzy · 2016-03-09 14:48:28

Kotrfa, please don't necrobump old threads.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … bumping.22

Closing.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-09-16 09:28:21

problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#2 2014-09-16 09:30:15

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#3 2014-09-16 09:32:18

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#4 2014-09-16 11:03:22

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#5 2014-09-16 11:15:41

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#6 2014-09-16 11:48:27

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#7 2014-09-16 11:53:41

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#8 2014-09-16 12:24:24

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#9 2016-03-09 13:57:15

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

#10 2016-03-09 14:48:28

Re: problem doing Syu updates (No such file or directory)

Board footer