Unknown key error when updating

Today I received the following when initiating an update:

sudo pacman -Syu
[sudo] password for user: 
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core                  139.2 KiB  1141 KiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
 extra                   8.1 MiB  23.7 MiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
 multilib              143.2 KiB  1137 KiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
:: Starting full system upgrade...
warning: python-pygments: unknown key '%g/en/LICENSE%' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key 'DanEvuagelos Foutr<arofoutrelirchlinux.org>' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key '%DEPREPLACEpythonts' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key 'iz%CHECONFENSTpythonts' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key 'iz%CHEPROVIDEpythonts' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key 'iz%CHEENDS%' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key '%Chon-setuphinxthon-wheecagre' in sync database
warning: python-pygments: unknown key '%Chon-httpatinux.gCHECKDEPENDS%' in sync database
error: could not parse package description file 'python-pygments-2.18.0-1/desc' from db 'extra'
 there is nothing to do

I have been keeping my system up-to-date and had no issues just last night.

Any ideas what may be going on?

Have you installed any package with pip, from snapstore, as flatpak or in any other way (so not from Manjaro repoā€™s or AUR)?

If not, then I would run

sudo pacman-mirrors --geoip
sudo pacman -Syu --overwrite \* python-pygments

and reboot.

Looks like itā€™s installed by default on Plasma, or at least was at some point:

Summary
pamac search python-pygments
python-pygments  2.18.0-1 [Installed]                                                                    extra
    Python syntax highlighter

Itā€™s not something I would have explicitly installed.

Why not actually look?

Sure you have the package ā€¦ but I dont.

And looking through my logs it appears to have been installed and removed various times as a build dep.

Even if you didnt look at logs and just used pacman -Qi to look at the Required by line or something that would at least tell us more than ā€¦ its simple existence.

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And neither do I :slight_smile:.

pacman -Qi python-pygments
error: package 'python-pygments' was not found

Guess its simple existence isnā€™t so ā€¦ simple :wink:.

I have no idea whatā€™s happening here but I will regenerate my mirrors as @Wollie mentioned and leave an update here.

The mirrors is a good idea.

See for example related scenarios of ā€˜bad mirrorsā€™ like here:

And --continent or geoip should, besides geolocating for near mirrors, also reset and refresh the mirrorlist.

Dont know why they suggested --overwrite though, as that would be useful for exists in filesystem errors, which you have not produced.

Similarly I would not point at the package python-pygments, as you have shown you do not have it installed.

sudo pacman-mirrors --continent && sudo pacman -Syu
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Well, lo and behold and what did you expect; Ran pacman -Syu without having attempted to regenerate mirrors and after the servers synced, everything worked. All that needed upgrading was gnome-shell-extension-gtk4-desktop-icons-ng (1:89-1 -> 1:90-1).

No clue what happened there, but everything is working as expected.

I would have posted this if my stupid Intel WiFi card didnā€™t brick itself as usual, requiring a reboot, just at the perfect time!:

Details
pacman -Sii python-pygments
Repository      : extra
Name            : python-pygments
Version         : 2.18.0-1
Description     : Python syntax highlighter
Architecture    : any
URL             : https://pygments.org/
Licenses        : BSD-2-Clause
Groups          : None
Provides        : pygmentize
Depends On      : python
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : bpython  calibre  cppcheck  filebin  gfeeds  gi-docgen  gtk-doc  httpie  ipython  jc
                  jupyter-nbconvert  jupyterlab-pygments  nikola  pelican  pgcli  piep  pwndbg
                  python-colored-traceback  python-diff-cover  python-icecream  python-markdown2
                  python-myst-parser  python-nbdime  python-prompt_toolkit  python-pudb  python-pwntools
                  python-qtconsole  python-readme-renderer  python-rich  python-softlayer  python-sphinx
                  python-sphinx-furo  python-sphinx-prompt  python-sphinx-tabs  python-superqt  qmk  retext
                  rst2pdf  sagemath  spyder
Optional For    : cgit  cgit-aurweb  cppcheck  gdb-dashboard  global  kitty  lv2  pg_auto_failover
                  python-cheetah3  python-cheetah3-docs  python-cli_helpers  python-django-rest-framework
                  python-docutils  python-httpx  python-mako  python-markups  python-numba  python-pyface
                  python-pymdown-extensions  qutebrowser  root  root-cuda  texlive-latexextra  zshdb
Conflicts With  : pygmentize
Replaces        : pygmentize
Download Size   : 2.29 MiB
Installed Size  : 14.10 MiB
Packager        : Evangelos Foutras <foutrelis@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sun 30 Jun 2024 19:06:39 BST
MD5 Sum         : d35728a662477ba0412a5350308d2d77
SHA-256 Sum     : 0cfefe670d1077d56c05a244a53fa5436fd5be038a356274bb46ee899ceb6c18
Signatures      : 51E8B148A9999C34
Extended Data   : None

.:wink:

Looks like you have it for ā€¦ a lot of reasons. :sweat_smile:
But none of them are requirements for a plasma desktop.

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Bear in mind mine is an old-ish ~6yr installation. Iā€™ll be looking into what can be got rid of which really isnā€™t needed any more ā€¦

I have noticed since this incident my computer has become very slow. Applications and websites are taking much longer to load, and a simple command as sudo pacman -Syu, which normally took ~3 seconds, is now taking ~12 seconds. It seems to be at its slowest when it says Starting full system upgrade....

And whatā€™s interesting is (I donā€™t know if theyā€™re connected somehow) is that I canā€™t even python-pygments in the repositories.

Needless to say, Iā€™m a bit confused :person_shrugging:

So the update made the whole system slow?

Did it complete successfully?

This isnt really a good measurement ā€¦ its performing an update ā€¦ which could be slow(er) because of the mirror or internet connection or ā€¦

So does this mean you never sorted/ranked mirrors?

The selected answer is still there including

Which should reset the mirror pool and rebuild it using mirrors from your region.

1 Like

There was no update. Only the metadata synced and the error vanished without having to refresh the mirror list.

Thatā€™s not what I said :slight_smile:. I said the majority of the ā€œslownessā€ occurs after checking the sync, during Starting full system upgrade...

It is most definitely not an internet connection problem since the entire system and its applications are slowed down.

So Iā€™m a bit lost for ideas here :upside_down_face:.

So the scenarios is that no changes have been made.

And yet there are new slow downs?

I would say this likely warrants a new thread then.

In any case ā€¦ it would make sense to get system info

inxi -Farz

It might also make sense to check running processes and/or RAM or CPU use, etc.

I looked around for anything that could impact this. Turns out power profiles had been set to Power Saver, which in all fairness I was under the impression it made little difference compared to something like tlp?

But in any case, I think weā€™ve found the culprit :slight_smile:.

Its less configurable than TLP - giving you 2 (or maybe 3!) choices of levels of power/performance. Whether this has more or less impact than TLP would largely depend on how TLP has been configured and/or other associated options. To some extent it will also depend on your DE as various things can be ā€˜hookedā€™ into PPD.

Aside from desktop-side impact, such as blanking the screen more often, PPD can usually be expected to affect CPU performance - at least so long as respective P-States are working as they should.

You can see more about it here:


Knowing is always a relief in and of itself. :slight_smile:

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