Latest Stable update breaks Qtile!

[damdam]

To all Qtile users pls be aware that the latest Stable update in Manjaro will break your Qtile session.

The new stable update upgrades versions of the following libraries:

• python-xcffib (from 1.2.0-2 to 1.4.0-1)

• python-cairocffi (from 1.5.0-1 to 1.6.0-1)

The new versions of these libraries are incompatible with the current version of Qtile present in the official “extra” repositories (version 0.22.1-4)

If you proceed and install the new versions you will be unable to boot into your Qtile environment a the next reboot (you’ll see plenty of errors in ~/.xsessions-errors to confirm that).

The only way to fix this right now is to downgrade the above packages to the previous version (see above). An easy way to do this is by installing “downgrade” from AUR

sudo pacman -S downgrade

and then downgrading each one of the 2 packages; after doing that you will be able to use your Qtile session again.

[cscs]

@damdam

An easy way to do this is by installing “downgrade” from AUR

sudo pacman -S downgrade

There is manjaro-downgrade in the repos.
Which should be preferred - mainly because it will use Manjaro archives, not Archs.

(and if downgrade were in the AUR you could not use pacman, which only works on the repos)

[Yochanan]

@damdam

plenty of errors in ~/.xsessions-errors

What errors?

Please see the following and follow the instructions for posting relevant logs:

[HowTo] Request support

Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆ Strong of its many members, the Manjaro support forum can provide you help whenever you have an issue with your Manjaro installation. But in order to work efficiently, we shall also ask you to follow three major points. Provide context Simply signaling an issue is rarely enough to understand how it occurred. It is thus important to provide details on how it happened: Detail prior actions leading to the issue. List solutions and guides you already tried, with links when…

@damdam

The only way to fix this

Downgrading packages does not “fix” anything. While doing so temporarily may be necessary in some cases, the issue will never be solved if no one knows what the problem is.

It’s possible qtile 0.23.0-1 slipped through the cracks and should have been in the stable update. You can download it from a mirror and see if it resolves the issue: https://mirror.easyname.at/manjaro/testing/extra/x86_64/qtile-0.23.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

[damdam]

That’s good to know, I wasn’t aware of manjaro-downgrade.

Though, all the package involved are not from AUR; they’re all in the “extra” repositories.

[damdam]

@Yochanan I apologise I didn’t keep a copy of the .xsession-errors so I don’t remember the error messages but it was cairocffi and xcffib complaining about missing dependencies (or methods); All of that was fixed by downgrading the packages to the previous version.
I believe you can easily replicate the issue just by try running Qtile in a new session; it should break in the same exact way, showing you the error messages in .xsessions-errors.

Downgrading actually does “fix” everything because, as you hint, qtile 0.23.0-1 has probably “slipped through the cracks” and not made it (as it should’ve) in the release.

I didn’t want (and I still don’t want) to download it from a non-stable mirror since I’m on the stable branch; that, in my opinion, would be even worse/hacky than simply downgrading the mentioned packages. Prefer to wait until you guys add the correct version of Qtile to the stable repos so I can run another upgrade and everything would work correctly again.

[damdam]

So, I’ve installed the latest official Manjaro release (Gnome version) on a VM; After updating the system and installing Qtile I can confirm I can easily replicate the issue.

Just by running Qtile you will get these errors:

(Apologies I had to take a screenshot since I was unable to copy the text from a TTY inside of a VM).

I can also confirm that by installing qtile-0.23.0.1 the issue goes away: I tested this (in the VM) by switching over to the testing branch and installing the latest qtile version.

[mahmoud]

I got this error, Is there a way to fix it?

[Yochanan]

@damdam

I can also confirm that by installing qtile-0.23.0.1 the issue goes away

Thanks for confirming. I’ll push it to the stable branch.