Community Repository Error

[ben75]

@rehunn

My pacman.conf file does not have a community repo reference and I don’t seem to have any residual .pacnew files. I get either on pacman or pamac the reference to the missing community.db files. Beyond the pacman. conf file where else does this update requirement lie?
Thanks for all your help

Try this in a terminal.

grep community /etc/pacman.conf

If it returns a line that says [community], then you have the community repo in pacman.conf. It will be near the bottom.

Open /etc/pacman.conf in a text editor as root, and then remove the line with [community] and the line immediately under it that begins with Include. Depending how old your install is, there may be a line under the [community] header that begins with SigLevel. Delete that line if it exists.

[nikgnomic]

@Algo

i fear i opted back then to keep the community repo and then delete the pacnew file, because i think if you keep the pacnew file you will be alerted with next update again…

If pacman.conf.pacnew is deleted instead of merging contents with pacman.conf, future updates for ‘pacman’ would create another pacman.conf.pacnew file

Pacman log on my system shows pacman has been updated 10 times since July 2023

grep 'upgraded pacman ' /var/log/pacman.log

[2023-09-27T16:05:49+0100] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.0.2-13 -> 6.0.2-14)
[2024-01-08T10:05:17+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.0.2-14 -> 6.0.2-16)
[2024-01-25T13:48:14+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.0.2-16 -> 6.0.2-17)
[2024-02-15T16:33:42+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.0.2-17 -> 6.0.2-18)
[2024-03-23T09:44:16+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.0.2-18 -> 6.1.0-3)
[2024-03-23T22:56:49+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.1.0-3 -> 6.1.0-4)
[2024-03-27T16:34:56+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.1.0-4 -> 6.1.0-5)
[2024-04-19T13:22:51+0100] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.1.0-5 -> 6.1.0-7)
[2024-10-03T10:50:42+0100] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (6.1.0-7 -> 7.0.0.r3.g7736133-2.0)
[2024-11-01T12:35:01+0000] [ALPM] upgraded pacman (7.0.0.r3.g7736133-2.0 -> 7.0.0.r10.ga2d0293-1)

Log also shows 3 more pacman.conf.pacnew files created for subsequent changes to pacman.conf

grep 'pacman.conf.pacnew' /var/log/pacman.log

[2024-02-15T16:33:42+0000] [ALPM] warning: /etc/pacman.conf installed as /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew
[2024-04-19T13:22:51+0100] [ALPM] warning: /etc/pacman.conf installed as /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew
[2024-10-03T10:50:42+0100] [ALPM] warning: /etc/pacman.conf installed as /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew

If a system does not have a pacman.conf.pacnew file to merge, the current default version of pacman.conf is available from Manjaro GitLab
pacman.conf · master · Packages / core / pacman · GitLab

If pacman.conf.pacnew has been ignored or deleted for the last 2 years, system probably has more .pacnew files that have not been managed and may lead to future issues

[tdussa]

@Nachlese

It is the policy and procedure that NO updates should ever touch system configuration files.
Not automatically.
Instead, the changes are announced and provided through these .pacnew files.

I agree, having something like a transition package for this particular case would violate that policy, and I can also see the virtue of having this policy. This policy is a perfect explanation of why there is no transitional package. Thanks for clarifying this!

Having said that, I would, however, like to suggest that overall, all things considered, it might be preferable to alter the policy to be a little less rigid. For cases that are obviously and unequivocally trivial (say, for instance, the config file has never been touched and is still bit-by-bit the default file, and can therefore without question be overwritten by the new default config file), it would help reduce the workload on admins to do these trivial changes automatically. (I also appreciate that this does mean a bit of extra work on part of the devs, don’t get me wrong.) This is all the more relevant for changes that would be breaking without manual intervention.

This would IMHO greatly improve the usability and help Manjaro’s user base to grow.

Again, thanks a lot for addressing my question instead of just playing blame games. Much appreciated!

[nikgnomic]

pacman/Pacnew and Pacsave - .pacnew - ArchWiki

For each of the #Package backup files being upgraded, pacman cross-compares three md5sums generated from the file’s contents:
one sum for the version originally installed by the package,
one for the version currently in the filesystem,
and one for the version in the new package.
If the version of the file currently in the filesystem has been modified from the version originally installed by the package, pacman cannot know how to merge those changes with the new version of the file. Therefore, instead of overwriting the modified file when upgrading, pacman saves the new version with a .pacnew extension and leaves the modified version untouched.

Going into further detail, the 3-way MD5 sum comparison results in one of the following outcomes:

original = X, current = X, new = X
All three versions of the file have identical contents, so overwriting is not a problem.
overwrite the current version with the new version and do not notify the user

original = X, current = X, new = Y
The current version’s contents are identical to the original’s, but the new version is different. Since the user has not modified the current version and the new version may contain improvements or bugfixes,
Overwrite the current version with the new version and do not notify the user.

original = X, current = Y, new = X
The original package and the new package both contain exactly the same version of the file, but the version currently in the filesystem has been modified.
Leave the current version in place and discard the new version without notifying the user.

original = X, current = Y, new = Y
The new version is identical to the current version.
Overwrite the current version with the new version and do not notify the user

original = X, current = Y, new = Z
All three versions are different, so leave the current version in place,
install the new version with a .pacnew extension and warn the user about the new version. The user will be expected to manually merge any changes necessary from the new version into the current version.