I am based in the UK and due to our government’s Online Safety Act, certain websites around the world are now disabling access from the UK.
One of these sites is repo.or.cz which hosts the git repo for gcc-snapshot, this means I cannot update the gcc-snapshot package on my machine:
==> Retrieving sources...
-> Found gcc-16-20260215.tar.xz
-> Cloning isl git repo...
Cloning into bare repository '/var/tmp/pamac-build-richard/gcc-snapshot/isl'...
fatal: https://repo.or.cz/isl.git/info/refs not valid: is this a git repository?
==> ERROR: Failure while downloading isl git repo
Aborting...
Error: Failed to build gcc-snapshot
If I open the associated web address for the git repo, I get an information page about the geoblocking.
The kicker is that I haven’t installed the gcc-snapshot package, it seems to be required to install another package, I think it’s the helium-browser-bin package.
This is clearly an issue that could effect lots of people in the UK, what can we do about it?
I have the feeling it will be a long and painful topic
Let’s see how much depends on it but i suspect it will be a lot. It is recommended to read about aur and pacman and to understand that manjaro, esp. On the stable branch, is not made for extensive work with aur (remember that little warning in the settings before enabling it? It bites you now).
In the future try not to replace important dependencies with aur versions. That will lead to all kind of problems in the long run.
Now you basically have 2 options: use a vpn to try to update the borked system and act like nothing happened, over time it will completely desintegrate and you will have to reinstall; or start learning about aur and try to clean up (which will be long and painful).
By running pamac update --ignore gcc-snapshot,libgcc-snapshot I found out that it was the kdotool package that required gcc-snapshot so I uninstalled that package to allow all the other packages to update.
Once all the other packages update, I might try to reinstall kdotool and edit the build files to pull the isl library (which the repo at repo.or.cz hosts) from somewhere else, e.g. github.com/inducer/isl.git.
It seems my unfamiliarity with the details of how dependencies work with AUR packages confused me and led me down a rabbit hole.
Hopefully this post will help others who face the same issue which, potentially, every UK user of Arch and Manjaro will encounter.
I didn’t replace any dependencies. I just installed packages via pamac.
This issue has happened because our government has annoyed website owners so they have shut their doors to UK users.
There was no messing around with packages and dependencies.
I’ve fixed the issue by just uninstalling the package that had gcc-snapshot as a dependency, which is kdotool. Arguably no package should require gcc-shapshot as a dependency - it should build with the system version of gcc. But that’s not a hill I’m going to die on.
pamac info kdotool
Name : kdotool
Version : 0.2.2-1
Description : A xdotool clone for KDE Wayland
URL : https://github.com/jinliu/kdotool/
Licenses : Apache-2.0
Repository : AUR
Groups : --
Depends On : dbus glibc libgcc
Optional Dependencies : --
Make Dependencies : cargo
Check Dependencies : --
Provides : --
Replaces : --
Conflicts With : --
Maintainer : dbermond
First Submitted : Sat 12 Jul 2025 02:41:37
Last Modified : Tue 17 Feb 2026 00:25:04
Votes : 3
Out of Date : --
I just ran the command to build it on my Testing branch system, and it did not try to install gcc-snapshot as the repo version of libgcc satisfied its dependencies:
pamac build kdotool
Preparing...
Checking kdotool dependencies...
Resolving dependencies...
Checking inter-conflicts...
To build (1):
kdotool 0.2.2-1 AUR
Edit build files : [e]
Apply transaction ? [e/y/N] y
Cloning kdotool build files...
Generating kdotool information...
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.manjaro.pamac.commit ====
Authentication is required to install, update, or remove packages
Authenticating as: Scott (scotty)
Password:
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ====
Building kdotool...
==> Making package: kdotool 0.2.2-1 (Sat 21 Feb 2026 23:52:37)
==> Checking runtime dependencies...
==> Checking buildtime dependencies...
==> Retrieving sources...
-> Downloading kdotool-0.2.2.tar.gz...
(Build process messages removed from output)
... Finished `release` profile [optimized] target(s) in 30.43s
==> Entering fakeroot environment...
==> Starting package()...
==> Tidying install...
-> Removing libtool files...
-> Removing static library files...
-> Purging unwanted files...
-> Stripping unneeded symbols from binaries and libraries...
-> Compressing man and info pages...
==> Checking for packaging issues...
==> Creating package "kdotool"...
-> Generating .PKGINFO file...
-> Generating .BUILDINFO file...
-> Generating .MTREE file...
-> Compressing package...
==> Leaving fakeroot environment.
==> Finished making: kdotool 0.2.2-1 (Sat 21 Feb 2026 23:53:13)
==> Cleaning up...
Checking keyring... [1/1]
Checking integrity... [1/1]
Loading packages files... [1/1]
Checking file conflicts... [1/1]
Checking available disk space... [1/1]
Installing kdotool (0.2.2-1)... [1/1]
Transaction successfully finished.
Fyi, you are now in in unsupported state ignoring packages.
The only thing you did correct is realising nothing really needs that package.
And the other UK users will not encounter this if they maintain their system properly and do not install random stuff from aur.
The issue is gcc-libs has been split up into multiple packages–in this case, whatever you’re installing now requires libgcc. It’s pulling in gcc-snapshot from the AUR as it also provides libgcc.
However, those changes are not in the Manjaro stable branch yet. Either switch to the testing or unstable branch or edit the PKGBUILD and change the libgcc dependency to gcc-libs.
-git and -snapshot packages as bleeding edge pull every dependency also in its newest -git version. That is something to be avoided on stable branch.
Several suggestions were already made - cleaning up the aur mess and reverting to stable supported state, or changing branch to unstable or modifying the the pkgbuild for the package, which you did not do. It will be some manual work in any case.
