Pacman is 0 bytes after interrupted update. Black screen on login

[unfortunate]

I started update process of Manjaro and got a long freeze. Pressed hard reset button. After that I got stuck on black screen instead of login, Ctrl+Alt+F3 doesn’t work.

Booted from Live USB, manjaro-chroot -a into my installed system. I tried to pacman -Syyuu but pacman was dead silent and I just got a new line inside terminal. Further investigation led me to a fact, that pacman inside /usr/bin and /bin of mounted system has a 0 bytes size. From this moment I don’t know what to do and how to rescue the system. Pacman-mirrors is 0 bytes too.

[papajoke]

You can download core/pacman-static.pkg.tar.xz from any mirror and extract the binary while chrooted…

[Fabby]

@unfortunate

Pressed hard reset button

Please read this:

[HowTo] reboot / turn off your frozen computer: REISUB/REISUO

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ This tutorial was created because people are using a hard power off during freezes, so this will teach you how to turn off your computer when everything is frozen using softer means. So whenever you see someone saying they had to “Power Off” or “Hard Reset” their system without doing a REISUB, please send them here! If you’re reading this in response to a question, please click the green link above this text to bring you to the full unabridged text of the tutorial…

and follow @papajoke 's excellent advice.

[unfortunate]

Exctracted, got two libraries (libarchive and gpgme) “file too short” error, extracted them too, but pacman can’t synchronize mirrors now. Pacman-mirrors gives me some syntax errors, but I’m not motivated to rescue system anymore, thanks for you help.

[Fabby]

To prevent this from happening in the future, please read this:

[HowTo] make a crash-proof backup for Manjaro

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ A few things you need to know about backups: One copy does not constitute a good backup! Backing up is not about the backup itself, it’s all about the easy and fast restore! Backup files should be stored on an external disk that gets connected to the system only during a backup or restore cycle so that RansomWare cannot encrypt your backup when it stumbles into your system through wine ¹ Alternatively, you can use a NAS directory that is protected by a password and that get…