Pamac may crash during big updates. Use regular pacman to update and after it finishes, reboot and update the remaining stuff (AUR packages, flatpaks, etc) with pamac.
You may want to try shelly as an alternative to pamac (but it’s in the AUR, so…)
No, you don’t want to use shelly for system updates !!! Use pacman. It also has the added benefit of not mixing system and aur updates.
I’d suggest using yay for AUR package rebuilds and upgrades. Maybe with octopi as a GUI interface. Naturally, after doing the repository packages. 
Please people, look at the “Known issues and solutions” post before commenting.
The pamac issue — and the workaround — have already been addressed 8 Stable Updates ago, and it’s still mentioned as such in the second post of this thread here.. 
I don’t use it myself, but If pamac is unreliable, why not just pull it out from the distro? I can understand that if a user is given a tool that is installed by default, they would consider that tool safe to use…
Why Manjaro has to offer a broken tool for such critical role? What is it purpose? If pamac can’t be repaired, let it just die.
I was also wondering about this.
Why not change the default to octopi or fork pamac if the original developer is no longer working on it? I personally really like pamac visually, especially since it gives a small description of the programs and shows the app icon, some screenshots and other useful information. It also handles flatpaks too.
But sadly it’s been in a semi-broken state for a while now, which is really sad because I used to use it a lot several years ago when I started using Manjaro, but I barely ever use it now.
For newcomers to Manjaro, they will default to using the built in package manager which is Pamac and it will end up breaking their system on updates and they will assume that something is wrong with Manjaro itself when the fault actually lies with Pamac.
The headline should be rather formulated neutral like “Pamac issue reported”. There is no real measure of reliability. There are also no statistics, merely some reports here and there. Moreover, while I experienced the issue myself (but only on one of my systems) I’m not aware that the whole upgrade process broke down. Rather the GUI or the CLI aren’t relevant for the actual upgrade process - they are just interfaces, the actual work is done by a background process. (However, of course, if you lose the feedback and reboot without checking whether the upgrade was finished successfully, then there is a good chance to break the system.)
I’m sorry, but that is simply not accurate. There have been numerous reports regarding pamac’s instability/unreliability. Even some of the mods here regularly advise users to use pacman instead.
Personally, I stopped using pamac for system upgrades due to it reproducibly crashing mid-update (on CLI, mind you). Yes, the update usually finishes successfully in the background, but that’s kinda besides the point.
Though octopi doesn’t support appstream metadata (for icons, screenshots, changelog…) and the developer doesn’t want to add it.
It doesn’t work as well with the AUR by default, not showing the list of all packages, and with yay it only shows what we search, not the whole list.
I’m running Manjaro on my main driver since 6 years. I never used anything else but the pamac gui even when i switched to unstable. If i wouldn’t be in the forum i wouldn’t even know the issue exists. Except for it appeared on one of my other systems but only on the one. There it looked to be quite reproducible so i won’t blame or laugh at anyone who experiences the issue and thinks it happens all the time for everyone. Then all of a sudden the issue disappeared again and i’m still waiting for it to reappear so i have another chance to perhaps find out more about it.
Are you talking about the notifier service or the actual installed package itself?
It’s sad that octopi won’t ever have images and screenshots… because it seems ok otherwise and Aragorn frequently recommends it as a decent alternative
So the only options left are to fork Pamac or use Shelly instead 
(kidding about Shelly though, had high hopes initially but doesn’t seem like anyone is happy with it)
Personally On 4 laptops, 3 running Stable, and 1 using Testing. I have never had a problem with either pamac (the CLI version) or pamac-manager (the GUI version).
Makes me wonder how those over at CachyOS are getting on with it. 
I still use it to install single programs and search for stuff and to receive notifications for new program versions… but I dare not use it for full system upgrades… 
I’m wondering about this too… CachyOS is extremely popular, if Shelly was in a broken state they would have to either remove it or replace it… or maybe they just try and patch it as quickly as they can when issues appear? 
I have been using pamac GUI on 2 Manjaro Xfce systems for many years — no issues to report for either Testing or Stable branches
Pacman is not an AUR helper
Pamac GUI can Ignore All AUR updates before updating repository packages
or Cancel AUR updates afterwards
Pamac CLI has --no-aur option to exclude AUR packages before updating
and request to update AUR package can be rejected after repository updates
I have seen a few allegations from KDE users that pamac is unreliable but there is usually no data for Manjaro Team to consider this further
I’ve seen plenty of threads and posts on this issue.
Do bear in mind, of course, that I read practically every thread and post on this Forum.
We are not two of them.
My partner and I, especially my partner, use pamac-manager on KDE. She uses it exclusively.
Neither of us have problems.
I use Add/Remove Programs all the time without any problems. As soon as the shield turns red It just seems to be a bit slower to start. That’s all.
I also use pamac (both pamac-cli and pamac-gtk) to update my KDE Plasma system. Did not remember having any crash before. My only complain about pamac-cli is that it shows repeating lines for package installation/removal, not a big deal though.