I’ve been having an issue with copy+paste stopping working on my manjaro gnome install. Fixed by logging out and in again, but I decided to try a different clipboard manager.
That’s when I found things are a bit messed up with Pamac. Using the GUI to install Gpaste pamac wanted to install a tonne of packages - quite clearly base system packages that we already installed. It seems to have forgotten what I have installed at some point today.
Pacman however seems OK. Here’s what happened when I tried to remove my current clipboard manager on the cli, first search - shows its installed:
pamac search clipit
clipit [Installed] 1:1.4.3-2 community
Lightweight GTK+ clipboard manager (fork of Parcellite)
Then try to remove:
pamac remove clipit
Preparing...
Error: Failed to prepare transaction: target not found: clipit
Error: Failed to prepare transaction: target not found: clipit
Try pacman instead:
sudo pacman -R clipit
checking dependencies...
Packages (1) clipit-1:1.4.3-2
Total Removed Size: 0.38 MiB
:: Do you want to remove these packages? [Y/n]
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) removing clipit [########################################] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/3) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(2/3) Updating icon theme caches...
(3/3) Updating the desktop file MIME type cache...
And its gone, as pamac also shows:
pamac search clipit
clipit 1.4.5-3 AUR
Lightweight GTK+ clipboard manager (fork of Parcellite)
clipit 1:1.4.3-2 community
Lightweight GTK+ clipboard manager (fork of Parcellite)
So lets try to install again to show the insanity of Pamac:
pamac install clipit
Preparing...
Synchronizing package databases...
Resolving dependencies...
Checking inter-conflicts...
Warning: dependency cycle detected:
Warning: bashrc-manjaro will be installed before its bash dependency
Warning: dependency cycle detected:
Warning: harfbuzz will be installed before its freetype2 dependency
To install (98):
linux-api-headers 5.8-1 (Required By: clipit) core
tzdata 2020f-1 (Required By: clipit) core
iana-etc 20201229-1 (Required By: clipit) core
filesystem 2020.09-2 (Required By: clipit) core
glibc 2.32-5 (Required By: clipit) core
gcc-libs 10.2.0-4 (Required By: clipit) core
ncurses 6.2-1 core
readline 8.1.0-2 (Required By: clipit) core
zlib 1:1.2.11-4 (Required By: clipit) core
bashrc-manjaro 5.1.0-2 core
bash 5.1.0-2 (Required By: clipit) core
bzip2 1.0.8-4 (Required By: clipit) core
pcre 8.44-1 (Required By: clipit) core 992.3 kB
libffi 3.3-4 (Required By: clipit) core
util-linux-libs 2.36.1-4 (Required By: clipit) core
glib2 2.66.4-2 (Required By: clipit) core
atk 2.36.0-1 (Required By: clipit) extra 398.7 kB
libdatrie 0.2.12-2 (Required By: clipit) extra 28.8 kB
libthai 0.1.28-2 (Required By: clipit) extra 181.7 kB
lzo 2.10-3 (Required By: clipit) core 84.5 kB
libpng 1.6.37-3 (Required By: clipit) extra
expat 2.2.10-2 (Required By: clipit) core
graphite 1:1.3.14-1 (Required By: clipit) extra 229.9 kB
harfbuzz 2.7.4-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
freetype2 2.10.4-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
fontconfig 2:2.13.91+48+gfcb0420-2 (Required By: clipit) extra
xcb-proto 1.14.1-3 (Required By: clipit) extra
libxdmcp 1.1.3-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 28.1 kB
libxau 1.0.9-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 11.1 kB
libxcb 1.14-1 (Required By: clipit) extra 1.0 MB
xorgproto 2020.1-1 (Required By: clipit) extra 243.6 kB
libx11 1.7.0-3 (Required By: clipit) extra
libxext 1.3.4-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 109.9 kB
libxrender 0.9.10-4 (Required By: clipit) extra 26.6 kB
pixman 0.40.0-1 (Required By: clipit) extra 268.1 kB
cairo 1.17.4-3 (Required By: clipit) extra
libxft 2.3.3-2 (Required By: clipit) extra 50.7 kB
fribidi 1.0.10-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
pango 1:1.48.0-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
libxfixes 5.0.3-4 (Required By: clipit) extra 13.8 kB
libxcursor 1.2.0-2 (Required By: clipit) extra 29.1 kB
libxinerama 1.1.4-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 10.4 kB
libxrandr 1.5.2-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 27.8 kB
libxi 1.7.10-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 151.9 kB
libxcomposite 0.4.5-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 11.7 kB
libxdamage 1.1.5-3 (Required By: clipit) extra 7.3 kB
xz 5.2.5-1 (Required By: clipit) core
icu 68.2-1 (Required By: clipit) core
libxml2 2.9.10-8 (Required By: clipit) extra
shared-mime-info 2.0+57+gc1d1c70-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
libtasn1 4.16.0-1 (Required By: clipit) core 124.2 kB
gmp 6.2.1-1 (Required By: clipit) core
nettle 3.7-1 (Required By: clipit) core
libp11-kit 0.23.22-1 (Required By: clipit) core
attr 2.4.48-3 (Required By: clipit) core 70.6 kB
acl 2.2.53-3 (Required By: clipit) core 139.9 kB
e2fsprogs 1.45.6-3 (Required By: clipit) core
openssl 1.1.1.i-2 (Required By: clipit) core
libsasl 2.1.27-3 (Required By: clipit) core 149.6 kB
libldap 2.4.56-1 (Required By: clipit) core
keyutils 1.6.3-1 (Required By: clipit) core
krb5 1.18.2-1 (Required By: clipit) core
libtirpc 1.3.1-1 (Required By: clipit) core
pambase 20200721.1-2 (Required By: clipit) core
libcap-ng 0.8.2-1 (Required By: clipit) core
audit 2.8.5-9 (Required By: clipit) core
libxcrypt 4.4.17-1 (Required By: clipit) core
pam 1.5.0-2 (Required By: clipit) core
libcap 2.46-1 (Required By: clipit) core
coreutils 8.32-1 (Required By: clipit) core 2.8 MB
libgpg-error 1.41-1 (Required By: clipit) core
libgcrypt 1.8.7-1 (Required By: clipit) core
lz4 1:1.9.3-1 (Required By: clipit) core
zstd 1.4.5-1 (Required By: clipit) core
systemd-libs 247.2-1 (Required By: clipit) core
p11-kit 0.23.22-1 (Required By: clipit) core
libunistring 0.9.10-3 (Required By: clipit) core
libidn2 2.3.0-1 (Required By: clipit) core 118.7 kB
gnutls 3.7.0-1 (Required By: clipit) core
libjpeg-turbo 2.0.6-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
libtiff 4.1.0-2 (Required By: clipit) extra
libdaemon 0.14-5 (Required By: clipit) extra 19.6 kB
gdbm 1.19-1 (Required By: clipit) core
dbus 1.12.20-1 (Required By: clipit) core
avahi 0.8+15+ge8a3dd0-3 (Required By: clipit) extra
libusb 1.0.24-2 (Required By: clipit) core
libcups 1:2.3.3op1-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
gdk-pixbuf2 2.42.2-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
librsvg 2:2.50.2-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
hicolor-icon-theme 0.17-2 (Required By: clipit) extra 10.5 kB
gtk-update-icon-cache 1:4.0.1-2 (Required By: clipit) extra
desktop-file-utils 0.26-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
gtk2 2.24.33-1 (Required By: clipit) extra
libdbusmenu-glib 16.04.0-4 (Required By: clipit) community 72.1 kB
libdbusmenu-gtk2 16.04.0-4 (Required By: clipit) community
libindicator-gtk2 12.10.1-9 (Required By: clipit) community
libappindicator-gtk2 12.10.0.r296-1 (Required By: clipit) community
clipit 1:1.4.3-2 community
Total download size: 7.4 MB
Total installed size: 471.7 MB
Apply transaction ? [y/N] n
Transaction cancelled.
Whereas pacman:
sudo pacman -S clipit
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
Packages (1) clipit-1:1.4.3-2
Total Installed Size: 0.38 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]
Sitting here writing this I remembered I installed Timeshift. So I’m about to revert to an earlier system snapshot.
But if that fails, any suggestions? Would a force reinstall of all installed packages with pacman trigger pamac to remember what is installed? Even though it seems to know what is installed but not when you try to uninstall…
Weird one 
