Pamac can't find software installed with pacman

I’ve always used pacman + octopi, but I would like to start using pamac because of the snap and flatpak plugins. As far as I know, pamac and pacman should share the same database and be completely compatible, but it doesn’t seem like it.

For example, trying to install the package sl, I get this output from pacman

$ sudo pacman -S sl
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) sl-5.02-6

Total Installed Size:  0,03 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

and this output from pamac

$ sudo pamac install sl
Preparing...
Synchronizing package databases...
Resolving dependencies...
Checking inter-conflicts...

To install (8):
linux-api-headers  5.8-1       (Required By: sl)  core       1,1 MB
tzdata             2020d-1     (Required By: sl)  core       394,0 kB
iana-etc           20201012-1  (Required By: sl)  core       398,1 kB
filesystem         2020.09-2   (Required By: sl)  core       23,4 kB
glibc              2.32-5      (Required By: sl)  core       10,3 MB
gcc-libs           10.2.0-4    (Required By: sl)  core       33,1 MB
ncurses            6.2-1       (Required By: sl)  core       1,2 MB
sl                 5.02-6                         community

Total download size: 46,4 MB
Total installed size: 219,5 MB

Apply transaction ? [y/N]

If I search for glibc using pamac search -i glibc, though, pamac is able to find it.

Also, if I try to use pamac to uninstall a package installed through pacman, I get this error

$ sudo pamac remove sl
Preparing...
Error: Failed to prepare transaction: target not found: sl
Error: Failed to prepare transaction: target not found: sl

Any ideas about what’s wrong? Or am I just missing something?

I installed sl with pacman, then I removed it with pamac, no issue there :\

[omano@omano-nvme ~]$ sudo pacman -S sl
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) sl-5.02-6

Total Download Size:   0,01 MiB
Total Installed Size:  0,03 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 
:: Retrieving packages...
 sl-5.02-6-x86_64                                 8,5 KiB  0,00   B/s 00:00 [-------------------------------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                                              [-------------------------------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                                            [-------------------------------------------] 100%
(1/1) loading package files                                                 [-------------------------------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts                                           [-------------------------------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space                                         [-------------------------------------------] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) installing sl                                                         [-------------------------------------------] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/1) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
[omano@omano-nvme ~]$ pamac remove sl
Preparing...
Checking dependencies...

To remove (1):
  sl  5.02-6    community

Total removed size: 27,3 kB

Apply transaction ? [y/N] y
Désinstallation de sl (5.02-6)...                                                                                        [1/1]
Transaction successfully finished.

//EDIT: note that I’m on TESTING branch so there might have been an update, try the TESTING branch to check it out.

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Switching to testing branch apparently solved the issue. Might as well abandon stable, since I’ve been thinking about switching for some time. Thanks!

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To be honest, no regret since I switched to Testing, I have updates earlier than Stable, and basically it is as stable. Only thing is that I try to follow the Unstable announcement threads because what is broken on Unstable can sometimes land on Testing, and of course read, and report any issue on Testing announcement threads.

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