Known issues and solutions
This is a wiki post; please edit as necessary.
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Please RTFT (Read This Fine Thread) first before reporting the same issues over and over again!
Note: Do not forget to review your .pacnew files:
2025-06-23
Possible breaking changes to pacman-mirrors
With pacman-mirrors 5.0-1, the global mirrors.json data file has been moved from /usr/share/pacman-mirrors to /var/lib/pacman-mirrors.
This move introduces a possible breaking change if you have custom scripts relying on the mirrors data file. If this is the case, then simply create a symlink from the new location under /var/lib back to the old location, i.e. /usr/share.
ln -s /var/lib/pacman-mirrors /usr/share/
The moving of the file is the only change and has been made to make it possible for users to have their /usr-tree on a separate read-only partition or btrfs subvolume.
xkeyboard-config 2.45 issue with symlinks
You may fail to upgrade from 2.44 to 2.45 due to some changes to symlinks. A discussion about it can be found here: Cannot update xkeyboard-config to 2.45 / Pacman & Package Upgrade Issues / Arch Linux Forums
The solution is to update the AUR packages depending on xkeyboard-config or move the files to the new folder /usr/share/xkeyboard-config-2.
More information about it here: xkeyboard-config 2.45 issue with symlinks (#1) · Issues · Arch Linux / Packaging / Packages / xkeyboard-config · GitLab
avahi-discover python script may fail to discover services
avahi-discover fails when attempting to write the discovered services to a sqlite database in /usr/lib/avahi due to lack of permissions.
The issue can be reproduced using a pristine Arch LInux system - it appears from the issues at GitHub - avahi/avahi: Avahi - Service Discovery for Linux using mDNS/DNS-SD -- compatible with Bonjour the issue is known - but not fixed.
→ Use of dbm causes problems with Python 3.13 · Issue #670 · avahi/avahi · GitHub
→ Fix issue with dbm.sqlite3 on readonly directories by mickael9 · Pull Request #698 · avahi/avahi · GitHub
Even though the issue has been known to upstream since december 2024, the behaviour on unstable branch has changed fairly recently - perhaps 4 weeks.
Temporary workaround
The workaround it is not optimal - but if you rely on avahi discover service - it will work
Move /usr/lib/avahi to /var/lib and symlink it back to /usr
sudo mv /usr/lib/avahi /var/lib/ && sudo ln -s /var/lib/avahi /usr/lib/
Change the ownership of the folder /var/lib/avahi including files
sudo chown root:avahi /var/lib/avahi -R
Change permissions to allow avahi group to write into the folder including the existing db file
sudo chmod g+w /var/lib/avahi -R
Finally add yourself to the avahi group
sudo gpasswd -a $USER avahi
Logoff and login to activate the new group.
Topic in German section
Avahi zeroconf browser zeigt nichts an
2025-04-12
Grub gained security fixes. Updating it may be risky
When Manjaro updates the grub package the actual installed binaries in master boot record (MBR) or UEFI won’t get updated. This is however needed to apply recent security fixes added to grub. Therefore we created Install-grub: a new way to keep your EFI/MBR in-sync with grub package to make it easier.
A more manual approach can be found here: [root tip] [How To] Primer on handling a grub package update
We also have it documented in our wiki on how to manually install grub when a disaster happens: GRUB/Restore the GRUB Bootloader - Manjaro. So if you are not experienced with it you can either ignore that extra step or have an install media at hand to recover as needed.
See also on how to create a boot media to install Manjaro fresh: Burn an ISO File - Manjaro. Those who want to get install medias having this update included may look for 25.0 ISOs when released or here: Releases · manjaro/release-review · GitHub
Remember, update-grub only updates the boot menu and install-grub is a script helper to install or reinstall grub on most case automatically via grub-install. All grub installations can be with a risk when not done properly as the user will change low level system parts and can easily break their systems.
Note: most likely grub was initially installed by an installer and therefore the user doesn’t know how grub got installed. So if you are unsure simply skip a reinstallation of grub.
2025-03-24
System may hang during splash screen when Nvidia 570 drivers are used
A lot of users with older Nvidia cards report system hanging on Plymouth splash screen after installing Nvidia 570 drivers. In the past we had issues with plymouth in general combined with Nvidia drivers. Therefore we didn’t update plymouth in our stable and testing branch.
As a workaround splash could be removed from /etc/default/grub file followed by a update-grub cmd to remove plymouth from starting. Another alternative is to test the newer plymouth and give feedback if that solves the issue:
sudo pacman -U https://mirrors.manjaro.org/repo/pool/overlay/plymouth-24.004.60-12-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
No sound from PulseAudio after PipeWire update
If PulseAudio audio playback is suspended after PipeWire update, unload module-suspend-on-idle
pactl unload-module module-suspend-on-idle
If that works, create a custom default.pa configuration for PulseAudio in home folder
cp /etc/pulse/default.pa ~/.config/pulse/default.pa
and comment out module-suspend-on-idle in custom configuration
sed -i '/load-module module-suspend-on-idle/s/^/#/' ~/.config/pulse/default.pa
2025-03-05
[community] repository removed from servers
Similar to Arch we removed our [community] repos from our mirrors and servers. You may want to check your pacnew files or manually remove [community] and [kde-unstable] when used in your /etc/pacman.conf file.
2025-05-02
community has been re-created as an empty repository so that systems where package manager configuration /etc/pacman.conf has not been updated can still be used to update packages from other repositories
2025-02-16
Update only regular repository packages first, no AUR
Follow the best practice of first updating only regular repository packages, followed separately by AUR packages.
- Update regular repository packages first with
pamac update --no-aur
or
sudo pacman -Syu
- Then, if needed, update AUR packages.
Failure to follow this practice may result in the installation of packages that you may not need, and may cause problems. For further details, see:
Keyboard layout issues / Update issues with fcitx5
If a system had sdl2 installed and AUR updates enabled, fcitx5 might be installed as a make dependency
It is recommended to remove fcitx5 and any other orphan packages following the update
pamac remove --orphans
Update issues with fcitx5
2025-02-04
Kernel 4,19 and 6.11 are EOL, 6.11 and 4.19 got removed from repos
Kernel 6.11 and 4.19 got marked [EOL] on kernel.org
Linux 6.11 and 4.19 have been removed from the repositories.
Please ensure your system use a supported kernel mhwd-kernel -l
PostgreSQL users should consider to prepare the change of major version 16→17
More info here and here
Update libpamac before installing the 2025-02-04 updates
Run sudo pacman -Sy libpamac in a terminal to make sure pamac-manager doesn’t crash during the update.
XFCE 4.20 may blank display after 5 mins idle time regardless of power management settings
Most likely this: Disable screen blanking
Call xfce4-screensaver-preferences and disable the screensaver.
xfce4-screensaver - Usage [Xfce Docs]
2024-12-16
Linux-Meta packages may prevent removal of linux611
Since we introduced the new meta packages to remove EOL kernels, as soon as we drop them from our repos, the newly EOLed linux611 kernel might be prevented to be removable due to possible installation of them when linux610 got removed.
If you want to remove the kernel now, please add modules like linux-meta and linux-nvidia-meta to your removal list.
Example:
sudo pacman -R linux611 linux611-nvidia linux-meta linux-nvidia-meta
More fancier cmd:
sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qq linux611 | sed ‘s/611//’ | sed -e ‘s/$/-meta/’) $(pacman -Qq linux611)
You can find more information about it here: Find a proper solution to automate EOL kernel removal via ALPM (#13) · Issues · Release plan / Packaging · GitLab
Critical rsync security release 3.4.0
2025-01-16 - Robin Candau
We’d like to raise awareness about the rsync security release version 3.4.0-1 as described in our advisory ASA-202501-1.
An attacker only requires anonymous read access to a vulnerable rsync server, such as a public mirror, to execute arbitrary code on the machine the server is running on. Additionally, attackers can take control of an affected server and read/write arbitrary files of any connected client. Sensitive data can be extracted, such as OpenPGP and SSH keys, and malicious code can be executed by overwriting files such as ~/.bashrc or ~/.popt.
We highly advise anyone who runs an rsync daemon or client prior to version 3.4.0-1 to upgrade and reboot their systems immediately. As Arch Linux mirrors are mostly synchronized using rsync, we highly advise any mirror administrator to act immediately, even though the hosted package files themselves are cryptographically signed.
All infrastructure servers and mirrors maintained by Arch Linux have already been updated.
– Arch Linux - News: Critical rsync security release 3.4.0
2024-12-06
Nvidia 470xx driver may cause black screen and cursor on Plasma with Wayland
When you try to use Wayland with the Nvidia 470xx driver you may have an activated a ghost screen, which leads to a so called ghost screen.
You can still use the right-click context menu and go to screen settings. Choose your other screen as primary and deactivate your ghost screen. Else you can use X11, which should not have that issue. More information about it here: Help testing Nvidia drivers with Kernel 6.12 - #20 by Arrababiski
2024-11-30
Plasma 6.2 might create a black screen when using X11 and default theme
For a while we are tracking the following bug of Plasma 6.2: 483163 – Sometimes on X11 with compositing turned on, black lock screen when using Breeze Plasma style, but controls are all there and remain interactive. There seems to be a regression when using X11 and the default theme breeze. A workaround is to use some other variant of Breeze or use Wayland. People who have issues could comment on that bug report in a polite and helpful way, so the KDE developers may fix it soon.
GTK4 apps may not start due to Vulkan GSK Renderer by Default on Wayland
With GTK 4.16 release GNOME switched to Vulkan GSK Renderer by default. When you have not setup Vulkan support properly your GTK4 apps might not work as expected. Also users with Nvidia drivers might have issues, such as people using RasberryPi and older hardware. You can override it by setting the GSK_RENDERER=ngl or GDK_DISABLE=vulkan environment variable in /etc/environment file. For much more older PCs even GSK_RENDERER=gl is recommended. To boost rendering you can also set GDK_GL_DISABLE=buffer-storage, so the ngl renderer would perform similar to what you knew from GNOME 46.
Graphical interface might not start due to missing libpixbufloader-svg.so
Seems there was a so-name naming change within librsvg: 2.58.90: -/_ switch in the name of the pixbuf loader? (#1075) · Issues · GNOME / librsvg · GitLab. To fix it issue: sudo gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders --update-cache
More information here: After today's update my machine is stuck on loading lightdm, no TTY access possible either - #36 by Photon
Pamac might not find AUR database
It is a known bug to have a message like this:
Failed to read AUR data from /var/lib/pacman/sync/packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz : Error opening file /var/lib/pacman/sync/packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz: No such file or directory
You can fix it by doing this: pamac upgrade --aur --force-refresh --dry-run
If it does not work that way try without --dry-run parameter.
Cursor sizes may vary when Wayland is used
If you enabled global scaling in Wayland within Plasma 6, especially with a fractional scale like 2.5x, cursor sizes would be a mess across various apps. For more information see this blog post: Cursor Size Problems In Wayland, Explained - KDE Blogs
Cinnamon 6.4 might change the default theme to a dark one
With Cinnamon 6.4 a lot of changes were made. The theme is significantly darker and offers more contrast than previous versions. Objects within the interface are now rounded, and a gap has been introduced between applets and the panel, giving the desktop environment a modern and polished appearance.
Nvidia: drivers might not work with 6.12 kernel
See also this open issue: 6.12: drm_open_helper RIP · Issue #712 · NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules · GitHub Nvidia provided a patch and shipped it in their 550.135 driver. More information here: Patch for 565.57.01 + Linux kernel 6.12 - Linux - NVIDIA Developer Forums.
We also patched 470xx and 390xx driver series as needed. Based on the current feedback, it seems that 470xx and 390xx drivers might not work at all with 6.12 kernel. 390xx got its last update by end of 2022, and we managed to keep it alive with kernel patches. If you have a legacy gpu you may consider to use the FOSS nouveau driver or exchange the GPU for a newer hardware.
Those who face issues with current provided drivers, may politely voice-up at the Nvidia developer forums in a civil manner and report their issue there: »»»»»»»»»» If you have a problem, PLEASE read this first «««««««««« - Linux - NVIDIA Developer Forums
Previous stable update threads:
)) in GRUB into the newest installed kernel, e.g. 6.15.
