Can't upgrade AUR packages

lance6716 · 24 December 2025 06:37

For long time ago I have met this problem

$ pamac update     
Preparing...
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.manjaro.pamac.commit ====
Authentication is required to install, update, or remove packages
Authenticating as: lance6716 (lance)
Password: 
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ====
Synchronizing package databases...
failed to retrieve some files
Nothing to do.
Transaction successfully finished.

Note that there’s failed to retrieve some files

And I use yay instead. But today yay still get some error

$ yay -Syu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 multilib is up to date
:: Searching AUR for updates...
:: Searching databases for updates...
 -> 1 error occurred:
        * response decoding failed: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value

At the moment I check https://aur.archlinux.org/ is not down, I can search packages

Solution

for yay: use wireshark to check what’s wrong. Like I’m using https://repo.archlinuxcn.org/

for pamac: use mitmproxy to check. I can’t access aur.manjaro.org

Mirdarthos · 24 December 2025 08:43

Hi @lance6716,

Try forcing a refresh on the package database. This includes the AUR package database:

pamac upgrade --force-refresh --aur

beermad · 24 December 2025 08:50

I’d suggest looking at the AUR page for the particular package that’s causing problems. My personal experience with packages that fail to download or build is that either they’re no longer there or there’s some problem (either with the downstream source or the packaging). If they’re not there it’ll be obvious when you try to look at the page; if there’s another problem it may be that someone has commented there.

soundofthunder · 24 December 2025 11:49

yay – Information only:

1. Update packages from the Manjaro repo(s):

yay -SyuN – or – yay -Syu --repo

2. Build/update software sourced via the AUR:

yay -Sua – or – yay -Su --aur

Avoid using yay -Syu or yay without parameters.

lance6716 · 24 December 2025 11:54

Thanks! I’m trying

$ pamac upgrade --force-refresh --aur

Preparing...
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.manjaro.pamac.commit ====
Authentication is required to install, update, or remove packages
Authenticating as: lance6716 (lance)
Password:
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ====
Synchronizing package databases...
Refreshing core.db...
Refreshing extra.db...
Refreshing multilib.db...
Refreshing core.files...
Refreshing extra.files...
Refreshing multilib.files...
failed to retrieve some files
Nothing to do.
Transaction successfully finished.

failed to retrieve some files is still here. Continue to next replies.

lance6716 · 24 December 2025 11:59

I have asked LLM and use this command to show my AUR installed packages

$ pacman -Qm

appimagelauncher 3.0.0_beta_3-1
argagg 0.4.7-3
cmake3-bin 3.31.6-1
corplink-bin 3.1.18-1
corplink-rs 5.3-1
feishu-bin 7.54.11-1
flclash-bin 0.8.90-1
frpc 0.65.0-1
gh-ost 1.0.48-1
git-secrets 1.3.0-2
gnome-icon-theme 3.12.0-9
gnome-icon-theme-symbolic 3.12.0-6
gnu-netcat 0.7.1-12
google-chrome 143.0.7499.40-1
gtk2 2.24.33-5
kdelibs4support 5.116.0-2
kemoticons 5.116.0-2
kernel-alive 0.5.1-1
khotkeys 5.27.11-1
kinit 5.116.0-1
kunitconversion5 5.116.0-1
lib32-libva-vdpau-driver 0.7.4-8
libquicktime 1.2.4-34
libva-vdpau-driver 0.7.4-7
manjaro-documentation-en 20181009-1
manjaro-firmware 20160419-1
manjaro-hotfixes 2024.1-2
manjaro-settings-manager-kcm 0.5.7-21
md5 2.3-1
minio 2025.10.15-1
neofetch 7.1.0-2
oras 1.3.0-1
packagekit-qt5 1.1.3-1
phonon-qt5 4.12.0-8
phonon-qt5-gstreamer 4.10.0-5
plasma-simplemenu 1.0.12-1
pulseaudio-ctl 1.70-2
qt5-webchannel 5.15.18+kde+r3-1
reiserfsprogs 3.6.27-5
spectre-meltdown-checker 0.46+26+gbd0c7c9-1
systemd-fsck-silent 239-1
systemd-kcm 1.2.1-8
tla-toolbox 1.7.4-1
visual-studio-code-bin 1.106.3-1

A long list I’ll check package status one-by-one soon.

Mirdarthos · 24 December 2025 12:02

Ignore this, I'm an idiot.

That was from a long time ago, that repository doesn’t even exist anymore and the fact that the line is there indicates the .pacnew file for it hasn’t been merged. That, in turn, suggests that there are probably other .pacnew files as well. I suggest they get merged/handled before trying to do anything else. See

But handle you .pacnew files, nontheless.

Nachlese · 24 December 2025 12:03

That message is not very helpful.
Not very verbose.
I’d try pacman instead.

First I’d update the list of mirrors.

pacman-mirrors -f
or
pacman-mirrors -c germany

then

pacman -Syu

then tend to what you want from AUR

lance6716 · 24 December 2025 12:12

Oh I really have many files to be resolved. I’ll read the manual and finish them ~12 hours later.

$ pacdiff -s

==> pacsave file found for /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacsave, (O)verwrite with pacsave, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/hosts
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/passwd
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/shells
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/locale.gen
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/default/grub
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/pamac.conf
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/ssh/ssh_config
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/ssh/sshd_config
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/pacman.conf
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/makepkg.conf.d/fortran.conf
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/makepkg.conf.d/rust.conf
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/pacman-mirrors.conf
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/pam.d/sddm
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s
==> pacnew file found for /etc/sudoers
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] s

soundofthunder · 24 December 2025 12:13

A couple of quick suggestions:

appimagelauncher hasn’t been updated in a while; no longer maintained, I’m guessing, but there have been a few people having issues with it.

Uninstall it, and use GearLever instead:

sudo pacman -S gearlever

neofetch hasn’t been maintained for a long time – there are many similar options to choose from but fastfetch is generally suggested:

Fastfetch is similar to Neofetch and actively maintained:

sudo pacman -S fastfetch

Teo · 24 December 2025 13:13

You probably mean community
But the links will be useful to OP.

In the long list there are also deprecated packages that just can be removed. Like all the manjaro stuff.

To me, the failed forceful update of pamac aur suggest a connection problem. Because the logs shows success on the repos, but there should be an AUR line just below, and it is missing and instead an error. So maybe it is a temporary throttling/ban/anti-ddos protection? I would try again after some time.

Mirdarthos · 24 December 2025 13:21

You are right. I blame…nope can’t come up with anyone/-thing other than myself to blame.

lance6716 · 25 December 2025 03:24

Now I have resolved all pacman save|new diff. And the problem still exists. Also I have uninstalled appimagelauncher and neofetch. Continue to check other AUR packages. Maybe I can use wireshark to see the HTTP response

# lance @ lance6716-nuc10i7fnh in ~ [11:17:44] 
$ DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff -s


# lance @ lance6716-nuc10i7fnh in ~ [11:19:13] 
$ pamac update                
Preparing...
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.manjaro.pamac.commit ====
Authentication is required to install, update, or remove packages
Authenticating as: lance6716 (lance)
Password: 
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ====
Synchronizing package databases...
failed to retrieve some files
Nothing to do.
Transaction successfully finished.

# lance @ lance6716-nuc10i7fnh in ~ [11:22:36] 
$ yay -Sua
:: Searching AUR for updates...
 -> 1 error occurred:
        * response decoding failed: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value

lance6716 · 25 December 2025 03:56

Thanks. I found these AUR packages are deleted

khotkeys
kinit
lib32-libva-vdpau-driver
manjaro-documentation-en
manjaro-firmware
manjaro-hotfixes
manjaro-settings-manager-kcm
packagekit-qt5
plasma-simplemenu
systemd-fsck-silent
systemd-kcm

I deleted them, but problem still exists. Now my installed AUR packages are

$ pacman -Qm                                                                 
argagg 0.4.7-3
cmake3-bin 3.31.6-1
corplink-bin 3.1.18-1
feishu-bin 7.54.11-1
flclash-bin 0.8.90-1
frpc 0.65.0-1
git-secrets 1.3.0-2
gnome-icon-theme 3.12.0-9
gnome-icon-theme-symbolic 3.12.0-6
gnu-netcat 0.7.1-12
google-chrome 143.0.7499.40-1
gtk2 2.24.33-5
kdelibs4support 5.116.0-2
kemoticons 5.116.0-2
kernel-alive 0.5.1-1
kunitconversion5 5.116.0-1
libquicktime 1.2.4-34
libva-vdpau-driver 0.7.4-7
md5 2.3-1
minio 2025.10.15-1
oras 1.3.0-1
phonon-qt5 4.12.0-8
phonon-qt5-gstreamer 4.10.0-5
pulseaudio-ctl 1.70-2
qt5-webchannel 5.15.18+kde+r3-1
reiserfsprogs 3.6.27-5
spectre-meltdown-checker 0.46+26+gbd0c7c9-1
tla-toolbox 1.7.4-1
visual-studio-code-bin 1.106.3-1

wireshark shows It’s

GET /rpc?arg%5B%5D=argagg&arg%5B%5D=cmake3-bin&arg%5B%5D=corplink-bin&arg%5B%5D=feishu-bin&arg%5B%5D=flclash-bin&arg%5B%5D=frpc&arg%5B%5D=git-secrets&arg%5B%5D=gnome-icon-theme&arg%5B%5D=gnome-icon-theme-symbolic&arg%5B%5D=gnu-netcat&arg%5B%5D=google-chrome&arg%5B%5D=gtk2&arg%5B%5D=kdelibs4support&arg%5B%5D=kemoticons&arg%5B%5D=kernel-alive&arg%5B%5D=kunitconversion5&arg%5B%5D=libquicktime&arg%5B%5D=libva-vdpau-driver&arg%5B%5D=md5&arg%5B%5D=minio&arg%5B%5D=oras&arg%5B%5D=phonon-qt5&arg%5B%5D=phonon-qt5-gstreamer&arg%5B%5D=pulseaudio-ctl&arg%5B%5D=qt5-webchannel&arg%5B%5D=reiserfsprogs&arg%5B%5D=spectre-meltdown-checker&arg%5B%5D=tla-toolbox&arg%5B%5D=visual-studio-code-bin&type=info&v=5 HTTP/1.1
Host: repo.archlinuxcn.org
User-Agent: Yay/12.5.7
Accept-Encoding: gzip


HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Server: nginx/1.28.0
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2025 03:54:48 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Encoding: gzip

<html>
<head><title>404 Not Found</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>404 Not Found</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx/1.28.0</center>
</body>
</html>

I use China’s mirror https://repo.archlinuxcn.org/

After I deleted these config lines in ~/.config/yay/config.json , yay can work now. Sorry for the bother. And I’m still trying wireshark with pamac to see its also misconfigured.

update: pamac is TLS protected. I think I need some mitm.

scotty65 · 25 December 2025 05:58

ReiserFS has not been available in the Linux kernel since linux613:

Should not be used on a Manjaro system. Instead, install kernel-modules-hook from the repos if you want to keep your machine running without a reboot after an update. (Of course, a reboot should still be done ASAP after any major system updates).

I think that is now included in the mesa package.

You have a lot of foreign/AUR applications that you probably don’t need any more. Some of those old KDE Plasma 5 applications may even interfere with Plasma 6. A few, such as plasma-simplemenu, aren’t even in the AUR.

The following command will list all of your foreign/AUR packages. If “AUR” does not appear next to a package name, then it is no longer in the AUR, or it was installed via another method (such as directly cloning a Git repository & running the makepkg command):

pamac list -m

You might be best off just removing all of those foreign/AUR packages (apart from google-chrome). For example neofetch is no longer supported & its Git page has been archived for at least a year. The usual recommendation is to install fastfetch as its replacement.

soundofthunder · 25 December 2025 06:42

If this is “upstream” for reiserfsprogs, I note that the respective GitHub repository has been inactive for some nine years, and no forks are obvious.

Anecdotal:- I recall removing reiserfsprogs myself, fairly recently – I suspect it may have been a dependency of some random software (sourced via the AUR) that I was experimenting with.

Edit:-

Normally, it’s best to uninstall a package along with other packages it may have installed. The following pacman variation will also remove any associated packages that are not being used by the system:

sudo pacman -Rns <package-name>

lance6716 · 25 December 2025 06:49

Now with mitmproxy, I can see pamac failure is caused by

$ ./mitmdump 
[14:48:26.729] HTTP(S) proxy listening at *:8080.
[14:48:30.206][127.0.0.1:40742] client connect
[14:48:30.243][127.0.0.1:40742] server connect mirror.nyist.edu.cn:443 (120.194.101.75:443)
127.0.0.1:40742: GET https://mirror.nyist.edu.cn/manjaro/stable/core/x86_64/… HTTP/2.0
     << HTTP/2.0 304 Not Modified 0b
127.0.0.1:40742: GET https://mirror.nyist.edu.cn/manjaro/stable/core/x86_64/… HTTP/2.0
     << HTTP/2.0 404 Not Found 14.6k
127.0.0.1:40742: GET https://mirror.nyist.edu.cn/manjaro/stable/extra/x86_64… HTTP/2.0
     << HTTP/2.0 304 Not Modified 0b
127.0.0.1:40742: GET https://mirror.nyist.edu.cn/manjaro/stable/extra/x86_64… HTTP/2.0
     << HTTP/2.0 404 Not Found 14.6k
127.0.0.1:40742: GET https://mirror.nyist.edu.cn/manjaro/stable/multilib/x86… HTTP/2.0
     << HTTP/2.0 304 Not Modified 0b
127.0.0.1:40742: GET https://mirror.nyist.edu.cn/manjaro/stable/multilib/x86… HTTP/2.0
     << HTTP/2.0 404 Not Found 14.6k
[14:48:31.076][127.0.0.1:40742] client disconnect
[14:48:31.078][127.0.0.1:40742] server disconnect mirror.nyist.edu.cn:443 (120.194.101.75:443)
[14:48:31.088][127.0.0.1:40754] client connect
[14:48:31.314][127.0.0.1:40754] server connect aur.manjaro.org:443 (84.17.57.27:443)
[14:48:31.336][127.0.0.1:40754] Server TLS handshake failed. connection closed
[14:48:31.338][127.0.0.1:40754] Unable to establish TLS connection with server (connection closed). Trying to establish TLS with client anyway. If you plan to redirect requests away from this server, consider setting `connection_strategy` to `lazy` to suppress early connections.
[14:48:31.344][127.0.0.1:40754] server disconnect aur.manjaro.org:443 (84.17.57.27:443)
127.0.0.1:40754: GET https://aur.manjaro.org/packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz HTTP/2.0
 << connection closed
[14:48:31.382][127.0.0.1:40754] client disconnect

Seems my network can’t access aur.manjaro.org

$ curl -v https://aur.manjaro.org/packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz
* Host aur.manjaro.org:443 was resolved.
* IPv6: 2a02:6ea0:d600::13, 2a02:6ea0:d600::14
* IPv4: 84.17.57.27, 156.146.44.89
*   Trying [2a02:6ea0:d600::13]:443...
* Immediate connect fail for 2a02:6ea0:d600::13: Network is unreachable
*   Trying 84.17.57.27:443...
*   Trying [2a02:6ea0:d600::14]:443...
* Immediate connect fail for 2a02:6ea0:d600::14: Network is unreachable
* ALPN: curl offers h2,http/1.1
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* SSL Trust Anchors:
*   CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
* Recv failure: Connection reset by peer
* TLS connect error: error:00000000:lib(0)::reason(0)
* OpenSSL SSL_connect: Connection reset by peer in connection to aur.manjaro.org:443 
* closing connection #0

soundofthunder · 25 December 2025 06:55

It could still be a case of bad timing;
with respect the DDoS attacks previously mentioned.

However, I agree, that dump doesn’t look particularly encouraging.

lance6716 · 25 December 2025 06:59

Thanks everyone. Now I plan to use pamac to check manjaro system level upgrading, and use yay to check AUR upgrading. I also cleaned many unnecessary packages and pacman save|new files and learned a lot.

Nachlese · 25 December 2025 07:14

I wonder why “it” never mentions with which package the problem is.
I know yay to be pretty verbose.

I have only ever used
yay -Syu
even for one single package

Never had that many and would try to first remove all of them
and then installing again, one by one.
The list is not very long.
I’m pretty sure many of them are not needed anymore.
reiserfsprogs is one of them, as has been said

first the base system:
pacman-mirrors -f
pacman -Syu

once that is done
the rest - the AUR
yay -Syu

one other possibility is that the merge of some file important for pacman operation “went wrong”

ps:
I usually use either yay as an AUR helper, or I use the basic method: makepkg
I have used pamac instead of yay, it mostly worked, but sometimes not.
It failed where yay did work … so I keep using yay.