Thanks, I first did option 2 listed here:
Pacman troubleshooting - Manjaro
Then I could update using pamac and I even ran pacman afterwards.
But still, after updating completed (strangely no reboot was required, but I did do a reboot) I ran pamac again and noticed this:
pamac update -a --no-confirm
Preparing...
Synchronizing package databases...
unable to lock database
Failed to synchronize databases
Refreshing AUR...
Nothing to do.
Transaction successfully finished.
Even after running the command you suggested (I am indeed using BTRFS, selected during Manjaro installation), I still get the message “unable to lock database”, although the “preparing stage” took a bit longer this time.
edit:
I checked but there is no /var/lib/pacman/db.lck file
edit:
Similar issue reported here, the provided solution worked. running pamac update --force-refresh solved the database lock issue.
Thanks for the very quick suggestions! It seems my system is now up-to-date again 