[SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

ArchyLife · 2025-12-15 00:07:54

Hi,

I just found out paru broke on the latest update...

paru -Syu
paru: error while loading shared libraries: libalpm.so.15: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru/issues/1460

But I would assume, more importantly, with something like package management and paru, there would be news and I didn't see any.

Shouldn't something like in regards to paru have been placed in the News, I thought this is very News worthy important and should of been listed there.. https://archlinux.org/news/

I look to the News for something like this before I start updating my box, so I am not facing breaks.

Do those that handle the News, do they use the forum here, so we might be able to ask about this, and work on improving the news, because I'm at a loss to understand, what I thought as something very important is not in the News.

THANKS

Last edited by ArchyLife (2025-12-15 00:49:32)

Scimmia · 2025-12-15 00:10:30

Why would there be news about breaking an unsupported application that's not even in the repos? The distro maintainers take care of the repos, AUR is your responsibility, nothing unusual about that.

WorMzy · 2025-12-15 00:11:10

Why would it be news worthy? AUR packages are unsupported and you are expected to rebuild them when they need rebuilding.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_U … g_packages

ArchyLife · 2025-12-15 00:27:35

@WorMzy I have certainly read over the WIki on AUR and the 'unsupported' part.

I understand AUR is 3rd party, but for some reason, not sure why, I don't recall, that something might of changed, and that AUR, along with paru and yay had some sort of support backing in Arch.

I certainly read a lot of the Wiki, but I've seen a lot of things outdated, so I've taken too what is written as not always the 100% word too.

I'll share my experiences, I've personally never been able to run a Distro, with only it's Software from it's own Repos and nothing else, I've never found that to be a reality ever in Linux.

I've always had to go to various 3rd party to get things that a lot of Distros don't have, of course every distro is different, some have more in their repos than others.

With Arch there there are things I use that are not maintained by Arch.

But I get it, AUR is 3rd party, again I thought Arch was standing behind it in a different way.

Anyhow, thanks for the replies/comments.

Happy Holidays!

Last edited by ArchyLife (2025-12-15 00:31:23)

basxto · 2025-12-15 00:33:39

If you rely on an AUR wrapper to update itself, it’s best to have a fallback script to rebuild it manually if it breaks.

PACKAGES="dependencies wrapper"
cd ~/build/
for i in $PACKAGES; do
    echo "Build $i ..."
    cd ~/build/$i
    git pull
    makepkg -fi
done

something like that. Though it doesn’t look like paru really depends on any other AUR packages, so manual clone and makepkg should be sufficient.

EDIT: Theoretically you can also do the partial updates path and downgrade pacman, but that can break pacman and/or your entire system. A live Arch probably can fix that. At that point it’s just easier to build manually.

Last edited by basxto (2025-12-15 00:45:59)

ArchyLife · 2025-12-15 00:47:44

Hi @basxto

My reliance on AUR isn't critical if something breaks...

Thanks

Last edited by ArchyLife (2025-12-15 00:48:07)

seth · 2025-12-15 08:24:52

But I get it, AUR is 3rd party, again I thought Arch was standing behind it in a different way.

The infrastructure is part of archlinux, the contents are NOT.
Everything in there is complete unvetted and unsupported and may break any time - or even be straight up malicious.

The AUR is a central way to arch users to share PKGBUILD *ideas* for software that's not in the repos w/ other users.
You're required to read them and welcome to alter them and if they don't work, that's first and foremost your problem to deal with.
That's it and it never has been any different, the highest rated AUR managers aren't any different from some random assholes NIH texteditor vanity project (and soon shell, because the Win95 desktop+taskbar design is stupid)

NB: When using a pacman wrapping AUR manager you're at a *constant* and systematic risk that the thing breaks itself because it indiscriminately updates repo and AUR packages at the same time.
paru *could* have avoided this w/ a process that:
* silently depends on a versioned libalpm (in a proprietary PKGBUILD variable)
* updates the paru PKGBUILD first to inquire the new libalpm version requirements of PARU (</=/>)
* installs a dummy package that hard depends on that version of libalpm (-Sd because that version might not yet exist)
* updates the system what will now run into an error and abort if the new libalpm collides w/ the dummy package
* removes the dummy
* rebuilds itself

If you have a problem w/ an AUR package the first address is the forum under the package (where some sticky might direct you upstream)
If you see something suspicious that reeks of malware you can report than on the AUR mailing list to have the AUR maintainers look into this.

raphix · 2025-12-15 14:53:12

And just for those who want the PKGBUILD to rebuild paru: I followed the rules mentioned above (go to the forum on the AUR page of the paru package), and followed a link there, to reach this page.

Then:

$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
$ cd paru
$ mv PKGBUILD PKGBUILD.old
$ vim PKGBUILD
# copy content from linked page
$ makepkg -si

# paru should be back.

system72 · 2025-12-15 15:08:53

for people who dont want to compile they'll have to wait

Succulent of your garden · 2025-12-15 21:52:54

If I'm not wrong this error:

paru: error while loading shared libraries: libalpm.so.15: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I had met it before, it also appears in yay sometimes. It seems that from a certain periods of time, the AUR helpers breaks with that and you can quick it fix it by just reinstalling again. Am I wrong about that ? Of course the way to take care yourself of adding the AUR packages avoids that, but I understand that people want to use an AUR helper, and the opposite, just pick your poison I guess but always read the PKGBUILD that you are trying to use in your system ^^

EDIT:

well paru reinstallation shows this error:

error wrote:

error: could not compile `alpm` (lib) due to 3 previous errors

So I guess it's time to grow up and be a real man and start to manage all my pkgbuilds by myself LoL

Time to read what is happening and troubleshot I guess.

EDIT EDIT's:

Wait it's the same libalpm that paru is asking before [insert facepalm]
Well I'm going to check and fix that tomorrow I guess, but probably I should start to manage the packages by myself. Now's the time I guess

Last edited by Succulent of your garden (2025-12-15 22:07:41)

karabaja4 · 2025-12-15 22:44:59

it always amazes me that people just trust a random John Does from the internet by doing "paru -S dodgy-package" or "yay -S dodgy-package".

You should ALWAYS read the PKGBUILD before building, check the source repo and maybe read the git history in the AUR to see if there's been any funny business going on.

Otherwise you are just trusting strangers to install software on your computer.

And if you're doing all that, then might as well use makepkg instead of using AUR helpers

raphix · 2025-12-16 08:22:04

Well, since we're a bit off topic, let me add my (not so popular) opinion about that.

I've been using Arch as my only distro since 2008, and been using AUR packages for a long while. And no, I have pretty much *never* read a PKGBUILD, because this community is made of good people™, and… it just works (most of the time). I've had a few significant breaks here and there, but 1) nothing so serious 2) the BBS here helped me fix the problems. Usually, also, the problems with open source software are not "in the PKGBUILD" (or perhaps I don't know how to read them), but in the features of the packages themselves.

So, even if I will always keep in mind that I should read PKGBUILDs, I will probably only read them when a significant package (like a package manager) breaks. I have a lot of packages from AUR, I read that people update once a week, it would be a lot of reading… I have kids and hobbies (like… reading, but novels).

Don't try this at home, though. It is just my risky way of using a computer, abide by the rules.

ArchyLife · 2025-12-16 09:03:49

seth wrote:

But I get it, AUR is 3rd party, again I thought Arch was standing behind it in a different way.
The infrastructure is part of archlinux, the contents are NOT.

Hi seth,

I know what AUR is...

My choice of wording wasn't good before. I was being brief, because at the time I couldn't remember the details of what made me think this way.

I remembered after I made the post... I recently noticed on an Arch Based Distro, a difference with pkg managing which lead me to think there had been some changes on this, but I later realized this was my misunderstanding, and that AUR has always been the same.

That's why I only mentioned; I thought before a few times...

My mistake for making the post, and forgetting, sorry everyone...

THANKS

Last edited by ArchyLife (2025-12-16 09:23:50)

Lone_Wolf · 2025-12-16 11:30:01

For clarity:

/usr/lib/libalpm.so.15 came with pacman 7.0.x and libalpm.so.16 with pacman 7.1.y .
Every time pacman changes so-names aur helpers need to switch also.
Sometimes rebuilding is enough, but very often the developers of the aur helpers need to change things to work with the new pacman version.

In the past the waiting time for aur helper users has varied between a few hours and (atleast once for one specific helper) several weeks .

Arch Linux

#1 2025-12-15 00:07:54

[SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#2 2025-12-15 00:10:30

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#3 2025-12-15 00:11:10

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#4 2025-12-15 00:27:35

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#5 2025-12-15 00:33:39

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#6 2025-12-15 00:47:44

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#7 2025-12-15 08:24:52

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#8 2025-12-15 14:53:12

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#9 2025-12-15 15:08:53

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#10 2025-12-15 21:52:54

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#11 2025-12-15 22:44:59

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#12 2025-12-16 08:22:04

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#13 2025-12-16 09:03:49

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

#14 2025-12-16 11:30:01

Re: [SOLVED] paru broke on the latest updates

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