Pamac and pacman behave differently on two PC's

Support
1

I have two pcs running same version Manjaro.

For many months I received daily updates and proceeded to install. In other words, I think they are both are kept up to date.

As far as I can tell both machines have the sources set the same. Both have always had AUR enabled.

Until a few days ago, they both showed the same packages available for update on a daily basis.

For the last few days, only one was seeing any updates. Whether pacman or pamac is used on the one pc the response is “your system is up to date”.

I know this is not true, because I use an application in AUR git that is definitely changed on a daily basis. It’s updates have arrived consistently on the other PC.

But, after a couple days the machine starts seeing the same updates again.

I’m confused as to why there would be a difference.

2

This is commonly the case when the mirrors have not been updated. You probably have a different selection of mirrors between both machines. Try updating your mirrors first on both machines — and I recommend you do this before every major system update… :point_down:

sudo pacman-mirrors -f && sudo pacman -Syu

Furthermore, pacman does not access the AUR, and the way pamac does it is through a local cache, which you may need to refresh… :point_down:

pamac update --force-refresh
3

Compare the configurations on both PCs.

  • Pacman configuration:

    cat /etc/pacman.conf

  • Mirror list configuration:

    cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
4

There is a timer to update the mirror list once a week. So depending on where the two otherwise identical pcs are (internet provider) and when they are on and off (time of execution of the timer) they can get a different mirror list. One of them obviously got unlucky and hit unsynced mirror. Solution is posted above.
p.s. after mirror change, it would be bettet to -Syyu (2 y - force refresh)

5

This is no longer required and is generally frowned upon, because it unnecessarily increases the network load on the server.

It is only really required anymore when updating the mirrors due to a switch from one branch to another — e.g. from Stable to Testing or vice versa. :wink:

6

To address the concern in the topic title - this is normal with Manjaro.

Mirrors update at different intervals - and because when pamac-mirrorlist.timer is run it will generate a random mirrorpool of 8 up-to-date mirrors.

 $ cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/pamac-mirrorlist.service
[Unit]
Description=Generate mirrorlist
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pacman-mirrors -f8
ExecStartPost=-/usr/bin/pacman-mirrors --status

Due to the randomization the mirror pool will be different across systems.

If you really want to ensure they are as close to identical as possible ensure you are using a single mirror which is provides sync in a stable manner.

You can use the interactive functionality of pacman-mirrors to create a custom mirror pool containing a the single mirror you have found to suit your usecase.

Depending on your location which one to use will differ.

If I use an external mirror - as opposed to my own - I prefer the mirror provided by [easyname.at]

sudo pacman-mirrors --country at --interactive

Then select only the easyname mirror and save the mirror pool

Repeat for any other system you have.

As for AUR - you know it is unsupported - so there is that.

Please consider alternative ways to check for update to custom scripts. Pamac is using a CDN distributed copy of a database generated by aurweb team - the database may or may not be up-to-date - I really don’t know.

What I know is working → [root tip] [HowTo] Check if your AUR build scripts have been updated