Did you ever looked at your .pacnew files? Just a guess here to try to go forward.
What’s a .pacnew?
run pacdiff -o
I think this specific part of Manjaro should be explained and put forward in front of users eyes somehow because this is something I notice more and more, most of users don’t know that.
This does happen and IMHO it’s expected to, over time. Some of my configs are (or were) from 3 or so years ago. Needed to change the theme last major update to fix things like blank tooltips etc…
pacdiff -o output:
/etc/shadow.pacnew
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf.pacnew
/etc/locale.gen.pacnew
/etc/default/grub.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/qemu/networks/default.xml.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtinterfaced.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtlxcd.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtnetworkd.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtnodedevd.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtnwfilterd.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtproxyd.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtqemud.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtsecretd.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtstoraged.conf.pacnew
/etc/libvirt/virtvboxd.conf.pacnew
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf.pacnew
/etc/sane.d/dll.conf.pacnew
/etc/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf.pacnew
I have looked into a couple of the files but I don’t know what I should be looking for so it’s not very helpful to me.
It may be possible that part of your issues are because you do not do a proper maintenance job of your Manjaro installation.
All these .pacnew files are created when a default config file got updated, to not overwrite your configuration files. example if you have a file /etc/myconfigblabla then it gets updated in the repositories, instead of overwriting your file /etc/myconfigblabla it will create a new file /etc/myconfigblabla.pacnew for you to be able to merge, or not, the new changes in the configuration file.
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/System_Maintenance#Pacnew_and_Pacsave_files
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave
So the idea is that these files need to be merged, partially or fully, or not at all, with your own configuration file.
It is not automatic, often you do NOT want to apply the difference to your config file, a perfect example is the /etc/shadow.pacnew file, YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO MERGE THIS ONE, or else all you user and system accounts are dead, all dead. This one you delete right now sudo rm /etc/shadow.pacnew or leave it but remember you do not modify you real config file /etc/shadow don’t touch it.
Look in the wiki articles, they explain the process.
Personally I installed and use meld for the DIFFPROG= value to use with the tool pacdiff (I don’t like the terminal compare tool, always clearer as graphical interface), even if not recommended to use a graphical tool as sudo, I still did it for this tool (actually I now use a more advanced script than simply running meld with sudo, found here, but most of people who don’t care just do a sudo DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff).
I recommend to do a snapshot with Timeshift before working on your .pacnew file, in case you mess your system, you could always restore config files to their previous state manually, or better, restore the snapshot, with the live USB
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a bit nifty … but also clunky - for example it doesnt do anything with the pacnews.
You can run it and merge changes … then run it again and all of the same pacnews are still there.
I actually run my own modification lol this is a part of a ‘big script’ I use to manage multiple thing on my computer, here is the part
echo; echo; echo ".pacnew files found: $(/usr/bin/pacdiff --output | wc -l)"
echo; /usr/bin/pacdiff --output; echo
set -euo pipefail
export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
for i in $(/usr/bin/pacdiff --output); do
echo "Merging $i ..."
/usr/bin/meld "admin://$i" "admin://${i/.pacnew/}"
echo; echo
read -p "Delete the .pacnew file $i? " -n 1 -r
if [[ $REPLY =~ ^[YyOo]$ ]]
then
echo; sudo rm -v $i
fi
done
So mine actually does something 
2 Likes
Hm. Something more like that might even be a candidate for pacman hooks 
I think something need to be added to pacman yeah, currently only “tech-savvy” people look at .pacnew files and even some don’t know about it. Most of the ‘basic’ users will probably never hear about .pacnew files and will blame Manjaro if it breaks at some point and distro hop 
or reinstall.
At least, I think it would be safe to add the .pacnew counting part, with a warning when .pacnew files are found. At least people would maybe ask themselves “what is pacnew” and would maybe then look after these files and maintain the system.
Also having a .pacnew warning in Pamac would be cool. But all that is another topic 
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Agreed. How many even know of this command: pacdiff -o 
Just as a datapoint… i learned about it about 5-6 months after starting out. So yes… it took a while for me to take notice that this exists.
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I admit that this is a possibility, especially given that I just learned about pacnew and what it is. It’s possible that one of these pacnew files contains a correction to config-file read/apply priority.
However, these are only for system config settings. My user settings should be saved in one or more of the many . directories in my home dir (.config and .local leap to mind), and should be read from there – if exists – before applying global defaults.
So, while useful, it doesn’t directly address my problem that user customization is being changed on updates.
I have not yet done today’s Stable update, and probably will not for a few days so the more common fixes can be applied. I appear to be an edge-case, so I’d like this thread to remain alive. I will definitely report the my user session state after applying the update, though.
I tend to do the same. There have been cases where offered updates disappear after a day or so, presumably for this reason. Then, after testing on this machine, I’ll apply the updates to my mate’s.
As a new user of Linux in a desktop environment (I’ve been working with Linux and Unix/Unix-likes for decades, but only in niche applications in air-gaped embedded systems) I didn’t know about .pacnew until I read this thread.
Since most new users will be updating via GUI pamac I agree that something minor that draws a users attention to their existence could go a long way for new user accessibility. But I also think this could be improved with how the documentation is organized, as I never stumbled upon the maintenance page until it was linked here either. Maybe that’s just me because for some reason wiki organization has always felt “off” to me, never was my favorite medium.
Its linked from pages like pacman overview and pacman-mirrors … but it could be placed better.
The wiki needs an overhaul.
And thats currently happening - it is still in the process of being rebuilt.
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These efforts are really appreciated, thanks!
Late to the “party” … However, I had the same issue, and I assume it was due to the transition of Plasma 5.19 to Plasma 5.20 doing things differently. So that update sent Latte Dock to ?wherever?, changed the wallpaper to default and the panel configuration to default as well.
I assume that it is due to the implementation of the telemetry option that KDE implemented with the 5.20 series that inter alia extends (optionally) to give KDE info about your panel configuration …
Thus, my assumption is that we won’t find the “issue” in a .pacnew file.
Update.
Since my last posting in this thread, there have been two new Stable updates. I intended to wait a few days on the 2020-12-31 update, but installation of a new package sort-of forced it on me. Ooops.
Anyway, I performed an update in early December. My KDE panels got shuffled around and Firefox suddenly started having stability issues (screen redraw) which extended beyond FF to the rest of the desktop. Just killing FF didn’t solve the issue and neither did a log-out/in cycle. Required a reboot. I have not logs to show or video of it in progress.
The 2020-12-31 Stable update did not nuke my panel arrangements for the first time in months! Hurray!
Still having firefox issue mentioned above, though it is less troublesome. Restarting FF makes it stop and, even while actively suffering redraw troubles, it stays confined to the virtual desktop where FF is resident. This is not one of the many AUR builds of FF. This is FF 84 from the official repositories. This instability is only a minor problem; really little more than a reminder that I should restart and refresh the thing anyway. I have a terrible habit of leaving it active for days if not otherwise forced to shut it down.
Anyhow, that’s my update. Things are better, but also worse. I don’t know what changes happened to make things different but I do appreciate the time the devs are putting into their work.
I still don’t know what to do with pacnew files. The wiki unclear. I’m still ignoring them, pending better documentation.
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