Arch Linux

Huppup

Member

Registered: 2025-08-01

Posts: 2

Partial upgrade of libxml2/libarchive broke pacman [SOLVED]

I did the foolish mistake of running a partial upgrade, updating xml2 and libarchive without many other packages. This caused many of my packages depending on older versions of libxml2 and libarchive to break, including pacman. When running any command with pacman, I get the error message:

pacman: error while loading shared libraries: libicuuc.so.76: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory 

A bit less Relevant, but when trying to run waybar, which was also bricked during the partial upgrade, I get a similar message, but missing a shared object file from libxml2:

waybar: error while loading shared libraries: libxml2.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have a flash drive with the installation iso available and was wondering if I could use pacstrap downgrade libxml2 and libarchive back to older versions with pkg.tar.zst files (that are used by pacman in the cache and for specific version downloads).

I know it is recommended to proceed with a full system upgrade or to install necessary packages with pacstrap instead of downgrading, but before running this partial upgrade, I was having issues with my full system upgrade (pacman -Syu) and would like to debug those issues with a working pacman and a working UI (as most of my config is not working and I am posting this on another computer).

If there is any other information you would like me to provide I will, I am sorry but this is my first forum post.

Thank you in advance!

Last edited by Huppup (2025-08-02 09:37:29)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,354

Re: Partial upgrade of libxml2/libarchive broke pacman [SOLVED]

I was having issues with my full system upgrade (pacman -Syu)

Specifically? This is the way forward, not downgrading random packages. libxml2 and libarchive aren't necessarily your only problems, and trying to get things consistent with downgrades is messy.

Don't use pacstrap. Use pacman with the --root and --cachedir options.

Last edited by Scimmia (2025-08-01 17:30:50)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,536

Website

Re: Partial upgrade of libxml2/libarchive broke pacman [SOLVED]

I second Scimmia’s question. The issues you’re having need to be addressed.

However, replying to the original post directly: see pacman-static. The pinned comment links to precompiled binary, signed by a key from archlinux-keyring, so you don’t have to build it yourself. The advantage is that you can run it directly on your normal system, regardless of broken dependencies.

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Huppup

Member

Registered: 2025-08-01

Posts: 2

Re: Partial upgrade of libxml2/libarchive broke pacman [SOLVED]

I was able to preform a full system upgrade using the --root and --cachedir by following https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … an_upgrade section 3.6

The upgrade caused problems in my boot directory, but I've encountered a similar issue before and reinstalling my boot directory should work (with the installation guide).

Thank for you help!
I'll mark the thread as solved once I check it works (and I've booted into arch linux).

Edit: I am now editing on my arch computer, thank you!

Last edited by Huppup (2025-08-02 09:39:07)