Pamac-checkupdates seems to be hyperactive

Support
1

I just noticed that pamac-checkupdates seems to be taking up a lot of system resources. top shows separate processes running for each logged-in user (usually three), with each taking >90% cpu and constantly switching between the different instances. Memory use for each is ~15% and stable.

I’m running latest stable update & openbox.

It seems this is connected to systemd, since, if I killall pamac-updates, they restart after a few seconds.

My pamac.conf is set to check every 6 hours, so this seems to be burning a lot of resources for no good reason.

TIA for any suggestions.

—edit—The problem may have to do with the database. If I run pamac checkupdates, I get GPGME error: no data, and a LOT of ‘checking dependencies’ output. Trying now to fix the GPGME problem.

2

Please disable update check for AUR packages as this process can be resource hungry.

It could be you have forgotten to remove community repo in pacman.conf

3

Thanks for the suggestion, but no, I removed the community repo from pacman.conf some time ago.

disable update check for AUR packages

Not sure how to do that, I’ll look into it. BUT, as far as I know, I have no update checking active at all. I check for updates manually, at a command line. I don’t use the gui tools and don’t run any sort of update notification apps.

I’m thinking (guessing) the problem may be caused by the GPGME errors. I found a thread with instructions for downloading new signature keys, but it hasn’t solved the problem.

# pacman -Syu
error: GPGME error: No data
error: GPGME error: No data
error: GPGME error: No data
:: Synchronizing package databases…
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unable to lock databases)

4

If pamac-checkupdates is running then yes you are using pamac’s checkupdates functionality.

Open the GUI preferences and disable the check

this means another process has locked using /var/lib/pacman/db.lck - if you are sure no other process is running - you can remove the lock manually.

See → Pacman troubleshooting - Manjaro
See → [root tip] [How To] Mitigate and prevent GPGME error when syncing your system

You can disable by editing /etc/pamac.conf if that is easier.

5

Thanks so much! Changing the SigLevel option to DatabaseNever seems to have solved the pacman error.

And, for now, the pamac-checkupdates have shut down. Wow. Things are a lot better now that it’s not running with a load of 4-5 all the time.

I’ll try installing the new updates and see how that goes.

Thanks again.

6

Very true and a neglected issue of this distro in general, especially for users in developing countries.

If you are, like most people in eg Africa, on expensive mobile phone networks, the default 6h-checking will take around 3Gb of bandwidth a month per machine. Add the 1Gb+ monthly update and you’ll get why there are so few Manjaro users on the continent.

There is an easy workaround but by the time most new users figure that out they will have noticed their phone credit melt away and abandoned the distro:

  • Turn off all update checks in Add/Remove software preferences (pamac GUI)
  • Open Stable Updates - Manjaro Linux Forum
  • Register, hit the ‘bell’ icon top right and pick ‘Watching first post’ to get notified of the monthly update

Whenever that happens:

  • Open link
  • Read announcements
  • Do upgrade

Apologies to the OP for running wide here. Peace.

2 Likes
7

Thanks for the tip. I’d like to disable all update checking. I’ll look into changing the 6 hour check to maybe once a week.

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