[SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

darthpenguin · 2018-10-22 21:18:08

Hi All,

So, here's the thing. I use Cinnamon. I was looking for a package manager with an update indicator that ran in the system tray. Somebody recommended pamac. pamac is an amazing package manager. Clean and simple. It works great with my setup save for one thing; It is not automatically checking for updates.

When I power the computer on or logoff/login, the pamac-tray application autostarts: so far so good. If I launch the pamac GUI and go into the preferences then toggle the 'check for updates' setting off and on then the system will inform me of new packages available for download. If I change the 'How often to check for updates, value in hours' setting that will also trigger an update check. But, if I leave the system unattended for a while it will not notify me about updates unless I use one of those tricks to trigger an update check.

Then I found the pamac-system.service file. when I check the status of the service file with systemctl it is not active. When I start the service with

systemctl start pamac-system.service

boom! update notifications.

However, when I try to enable the service so it will start automatically when the system starts

systemctl enable pamac-system.service

I get this error.

The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy, RequiredBy, Also, Alias settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance for template units).
This means they are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.
Possible reasons for having this kind of units are:
1) A unit may be statically enabled by being symlinked from another unit's
   .wants/ or .requires/ directory.
2) A unit's purpose may be to act as a helper for some other unit which has
   a requirement dependency on it.
3) A unit may be started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer,
   D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...).
4) In case of template units, the unit is meant to be enabled with some
   instance name specified.

So..... I mean, if I'm not supposed to enable it with systemctl then why do I need to enable it for pamac to show me updates?

Is this better asked on the Manjaro forums? even though I'm using Arch? or should I look to the github page of pamac for support?

What do you think?

Last edited by darthpenguin (2018-10-24 23:47:20)

jasonwryan · 2018-10-22 21:23:08

Moving to AUR Issues...

eschwartz · 2018-10-23 20:36:01

darthpenguin wrote:

The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy, RequiredBy, Also, Alias settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance for template units).
This means they are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.
Possible reasons for having this kind of units are:
[...]
3) A unit may be started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer,
   D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...).

So..... I mean, if I'm not supposed to enable it with systemctl then why do I need to enable it for pamac to show me updates?

You tell me, why do you need to enable it? You're the one who has confidently asserted that it "needs" to be enabled.

...

The service file in question: https://gitlab.manjaro.org/applications … em.service

It's clearly meant to be activated by dbus, just like systemctl warned you. For more details I suggest you ask the pamac developers. Especially, as pamac is not well liked on these forums.

darthpenguin · 2018-10-23 23:39:24

My apologies if my post came across as confident and assertive. I just noticed that with the service started pamac finds updates automatically and without the service running it doesn't. But correlation does not imply causation. I don't *know* the service needs to be running. It just seemed like a valid hypothesis. I'm glad that you are able to clearly see that the service needs to be activated by dbus. That was not clear to me. I'd like to know how you figured that out. I'm here to learn. If it was clear that dbus had to activate the service or if I knew the service did not *need* to be enabled then I wouldn't have bothered posting in the forums.

You have been very helpful even though the issue is not resolved. Your last sentence was the most helpful.

Especially, as pamac is not well liked on these forums.

I didn't know it was not well liked and I don't pretend to understand why (unless it is just because it doesn't work which, for me, it kinda doesn't). But I respect that and I understand I probably will not find the kind of support I'm looking for in this forum. Thank you for your time.

Trilby · 2018-10-24 00:02:54

Darthpenguin, thanks for responding quite generously to a rather dismissive comment. Eschwartz is likely correct that pamac is not popular here - speaking only for myself, I have no interest in it. But there are many pieces of software that I have no interest in - or even may have an aversion to - yet they are still fair game for discussion on the forums by users who are drawn to them.

I gather you could set up a timer that would start the service, but from a quick look at the code, it looks like pacman-tray is supposed to start the service. If it is failing to do so, you may want to ask and/or report the issue upstream on the gitlab page.

eschwartz · 2018-10-24 19:35:41

darthpenguin wrote:

My apologies if my post came across as confident and assertive. I just noticed that with the service started pamac finds updates automatically and without the service running it doesn't. But correlation does not imply causation. I don't *know* the service needs to be running. It just seemed like a valid hypothesis. I'm glad that you are able to clearly see that the service needs to be activated by dbus. That was not clear to me. I'd like to know how you figured that out. I'm here to learn. If it was clear that dbus had to activate the service or if I knew the service did not *need* to be enabled then I wouldn't have bothered posting in the forums.

What I mean to say is that by reading the service file in question (I read it from the git repository since I don't have it installed on my system), and seeing references to "d-bus", it *becomes* obvious that this is linked to systemctl's warning "started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer, D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...)".

Especially, as pamac is not well liked on these forums.
I didn't know it was not well liked and I don't pretend to understand why (unless it is just because it doesn't work which, for me, it kinda doesn't). But I respect that and I understand I probably will not find the kind of support I'm looking for in this forum. Thank you for your time.

Trilby wrote:

But there are many pieces of software that I have no interest in - or even may have an aversion to - yet they are still fair game for discussion on the forums by users who are drawn to them.

I have sufficiently analyzed the file to determine that it's dbus activated, but I have no clue where that might be set.

As for discussing pamac in general and why pamac is not well liked here, there's a severe difference between your run-of-the-mill "I have no interest in" and a program written by an Arch derivative, which caters to users who do not know how to cope with Arch Linux's CLI package manager, and then *gets it wrong*.

Pamac is among the numerous offenders of the "don't do partial updates" mantra, as it has, in the past, done periodic `pacman -Sy` in order to show available updates, then relied on you using pamac and *only* pamac to do further updates -- for pamac implements its own check to see if you have available updates that must be updated before installing new programs: https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/issues/248

Supposedly this is fixed in v5.0.0, despite the actual code appearing in a code dump with the commit message "v5.1.0": https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/commit … a0dff2747e

But given they're not exactly trustworthy in the first place, I personally wouldn't want to use it without first vetting the source tree to discover whether they've brought back partial updates somehow.

I... guess one could discuss it here if one wanted to, but I think people who actually use it and understand how it works are in short supply.

darthpenguin · 2018-10-24 23:17:52

Thank you Eschwartz for the in-depth info. Obviously, I am not a developer and while I have been using some variant of a Linux-based OS for many years I still feel like a noob sometimes.

I have sufficiently analyzed the file to determine that it's dbus activated, but I have no clue where that might be set.
As for discussing pamac in general and why pamac is not well liked here, there's a severe difference between your run-of-the-mill "I have no interest in" and a program written by an Arch derivative, which caters to users who do not know how to cope with Arch Linux's CLI package manager, and then *gets it wrong*.
Pamac is among the numerous offenders of the "don't do partial updates" mantra, as it has, in the past, done periodic `pacman -Sy` in order to show available updates, then relied on you using pamac and *only* pamac to do further updates -- for pamac implements its own check to see if you have available updates that must be updated before installing new programs: https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/issues/248
Supposedly this is fixed in v5.0.0, despite the actual code appearing in a code dump with the commit message "v5.1.0": https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/commit … a0dff2747e
But given they're not exactly trustworthy in the first place, I personally wouldn't want to use it without first vetting the source tree to discover whether they've brought back partial updates somehow.
I... guess one could discuss it here if one wanted to, but I think people who actually use it and understand how it works are in short supply.

You make some good points here. By deviating from the officially supported package manager (pacman) I could be asking for trouble. I didn't consider that. My problem is not that I don't know how to cope with a cli package manager. I actually do know how to use it. I just want the convenience of being notified when updates are available instead of having to remember to manually check for updates. I actually added a bit of code to my conky config which runs checkupdate every few hours. So now conky shows me available updates on my desktop. It is not perfect; it is not running as a tray icon and it does not notify me of updated AUR packages. But it is a start.

Gnome-Shell has an extension which puts an Arch icon in the top bar and notifies the user of updates. I *love* that extension but I'm using cinnamon right now... so if you have any suggestions of a good update notifier that would be amazing.

loqs · 2018-10-24 23:42:20

AUR_helpers#Update_notifiers

darthpenguin · 2018-10-24 23:46:49

AUR_helpers#Update_notifiers

... I'll be damned. Thanks!

eschwartz · 2018-10-25 00:07:40

Well, finding an alternative (more lightweight) update notifier is always nice.

Even without that, a conky config that runs checkupdates for repo packages could be expanded to also call an AUR helper like aurutils' `aurcheck` or auracle (the successor to cower) with `auracle sync` to append to the list returned by checkupdates (and then `wc -l` can just sum them both together, or even separately if you wanted).

Last edited by eschwartz (2018-10-25 00:10:08)

Alad · 2018-10-25 10:02:27

Supposedly this is fixed in v5.0.0, despite the actual code appearing in a code dump with the commit message "v5.1.0": https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/commit … a0dff2747e
But given they're not exactly trustworthy in the first place, I personally wouldn't want to use it without first vetting the source tree to discover whether they've brought back partial updates somehow.

They have actually: https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/pull/393 (reverted later in https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/commit … 05c3c7717)

My impression from this is that the authors fail to realize the implications of running partial upgrades on Arch (and not Manjaro). I haven't bothered to keep track of it - pamac might or might not run (unattended) partial upgrades at this point.

Last edited by Alad (2018-10-25 10:03:09)

eschwartz · 2018-10-25 15:04:56

Lol, sterling quality. What I would like to know is, do they realize after running an -Syy, you need to use an -Suu in order to force a downgrade? It's... not very bizarre that the developers just went and mixed this up with the idea of "switching branches", when you actually do want to force new dbs and downgrade everything.

Arch Linux

#1 2018-10-22 21:18:08

[SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#2 2018-10-22 21:23:08

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#3 2018-10-23 20:36:01

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#4 2018-10-23 23:39:24

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#5 2018-10-24 00:02:54

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#6 2018-10-24 19:35:41

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#7 2018-10-24 23:17:52

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#8 2018-10-24 23:42:20

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#9 2018-10-24 23:46:49

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#10 2018-10-25 00:07:40

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#11 2018-10-25 10:02:27

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

#12 2018-10-25 15:04:56

Re: [SOLVED] pamac is not automatically checking for updates.

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