Pulseaudio-git: tricky libpulse conflict preventing stable update

I’m on Manjaro GNOME and I cannot install the latest stable update (2021-01-19) due to a tricky package conflict with the AUR package, pulseaudio-git, which I need for hardware support. I get the following message when attempting ‘pacman -Syu’:

looking for conflicting packages...
:: libpulse and pulseaudio-git are in conflict (libpulse.so). Remove pulseaudio-git? [y/N]

Declining to remove pulseaudio-git aborts the upgrade (“error: unresolvable package conflicts detected”), and opting to remove it also causes the update to error out with the following dependency errors:

error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing pulseaudio-git breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-bluetooth' required by gnome-bluetooth
:: removing pulseaudio-git breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-bluetooth' required by manjaro-bluetooth
:: removing pulseaudio-git breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-equalizer' required by manjaro-pulse
:: removing pulseaudio-git breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-jack' required by manjaro-pulse
:: removing pulseaudio-git breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-zeroconf' required by manjaro-pulse
:: removing pulseaudio-git breaks dependency 'pulseaudio-lirc' required by manjaro-pulse

I can’t temporarily remove any of the packages that require pulseaudio-git, either, as they’re required by yet other packages, which are required by yet other packages.

Attempting to install vanilla pulseaudio in place of pulseaudio-git is also a non-starter, as it yields the same initial error message as above (“libpulse and pulseaudio-git are in conflict (libpulse.so).”, etc.).

Any help climbing out of this rabbit hole would be greatly appreciated.

Hi. What about removing pulseaudio-git with pacman -Rdd, upgrading and then installing pulseaudio-git again?

Thanks. I’ve tried your suggestion and unfortunately it didn’t work. I was able to remove pulseaudio-git and perform the stable update with pacman -Syu. However, I was subsequently unable to reinstall pulseaudio-git. The reinstall attempt errors out as follows:

looking for conflicting packages...
:: pulseaudio-git and pulseaudio-zeroconf are in conflict. Remove pulseaudio-zeroconf? [y/N] y
:: pulseaudio-git and pulseaudio-lirc are in conflict. Remove pulseaudio-lirc? [y/N] y
:: pulseaudio-git and pulseaudio-bluetooth are in conflict. Remove pulseaudio-bluetooth? [y/N] y
:: pulseaudio-git and pulseaudio-equalizer are in conflict. Remove pulseaudio-equalizer? [y/N] y
:: pulseaudio-git and libpulse are in conflict (libpulse.so). Remove libpulse? [y/N] y
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing libpulse breaks dependency 'libpulse=14.2-1' required by pulseaudio

Vanilla pulseaudio was installed as part of the stable update, so it remains to be seen whether I busted anything with -Rdd. Backing up a bunch of stuff now before I reboot and find out. :crossed_fingers:

Will report back.

Sorry to hear that. What a tricky situation my friend.

I don’t know if doing the same trick again, removing ignoring dependencies with -Rdd the vanilla pulseaudio and then installing the git one after would be of help. Maybe worth a try.

Well, some good news. I’ve rebooted and at first glance things seem to be working for now with vanilla pulseaudio. It’s possible that the latest vanilla version has sufficiently caught up with git that it now supports my hardware, though I’ll need to poke around a bit more before I’m sure all my audio devices work.

I know the Arch wiki warns that -Rdd can have unpredictable results, so I’ll keep an eye on things and try your other suggestion to reinstall pulseaudio-git if it becomes necessary.

Thanks for checking back.

That’s nice to hear. Better to stick to official, synced, manjaro repo apps than aur git ones in essencial packages like this anyway.

Don’t worry, since you installed vanilla pulseadio again, there shouldn’t be any issues by using that -Rdd. Take care.

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Agreed! And thanks for your help. Good to hear that -Rdd won’t have any lasting impacts in this instance.