Jguer/yay · error · ErrABSPackageNotFound

package not found in repos

Error message

package not found in repos

What it means

Sentinel error ErrABSPackageNotFound from pkg/download/abs.go signals that the Arch Build System (ABS) fetch found no package at the given URL. ABSPKGBUILD builds a gitlab.archlinux.org URL for the package and checks the HTTP response; any non-200 status (most importantly 404) is converted to this error. It means the requested package does not exist in the configured repositories, not that the network failed.

Solutions

1. Verify the package name is spelled correctly and exists in an official repo (pacman -Si <name> or the Arch package search).
2. Check whether the package only exists in the AUR — if so, fetch the PKGBUILD from the AUR instead of ABS.
3. Refresh local sync databases (pacman -Sy) and retry, since stale metadata can reference removed packages.
4. Retry after a short delay if GitLab was returning a transient non-200 (5xx).

Example fix

// before
pkgbuild, err := download.ABSPKGBUILD(ctx, "brltty-nonexistent")
// after
if _, err := exec.Command("pacman", "-Si", pkgname).Run(); err != nil {
    // fall back to AUR or abort before calling ABSPKGBUILD
    return fmt.Errorf("%s not found in official repos; trying AUR", pkgname)
}
pkgbuild, err := download.ABSPKGBUILD(ctx, pkgname)

// Pre-check package existence before calling ABSPKGBUILD
func pkgInRepos(pkg string) bool {
    return exec.Command("pacman", "-Si", pkg).Run() == nil
}
if !pkgInRepos(pkgname) {
    // route to AUR or abort
}

func isABSPackageNotFound(err error) bool {
    return errors.Is(err, download.ErrABSPackageNotFound)
}

pkgbuild, err := download.ABSPKGBUILD(ctx, pkgname)
if err != nil {
    if errors.Is(err, download.ErrABSPackageNotFound) {
        return fmt.Errorf("package %q not found in repos; check spelling or use AUR", pkgname)
    }
    return err // network or other failure
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling ABSPKGBUILD with a pkgname that has no package in the ABS repository, or with a repo value that does not host it; the GitLab request returns 404 (or another non-200) and abs.go:71 maps it to this sentinel.

Common situations: Typo in a package name when building from source; AUR-only or renamed/removed packages that no longer exist in the official repos; stale local repo metadata listing a package that was deleted upstream; transient GitLab 5xx also surfaces as this error.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• problem importing keys
• invalid status code
• invalid option
• no keys to import
• failed to parse

AI-assisted analysis of Jguer/yay@328f4b4939 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f6c7ffb9b93de7f0. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at pkg/download/abs.go:23

	"errors"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
	"regexp"

	"github.com/leonelquinteros/gotext"

	"github.com/Jguer/yay/v13/pkg/settings/exe"
)

const (
	MaxConcurrentFetch = 20
	absPackageURL      = "https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages"
)

var (
	ErrInvalidRepository  = errors.New(gotext.Get("invalid repository"))
	ErrABSPackageNotFound = errors.New(gotext.Get("package not found in repos"))
)

type regexReplace struct {
	repl  string
	match *regexp.Regexp
}

// regex replacements for Gitlab URLs
// info: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/devtools/-/blob/6ce666a1669235749c17d5c44d8a24dea4a135da/src/lib/api/gitlab.sh#L84
var gitlabRepl = []regexReplace{
	{repl: `$1-$2`, match: regexp.MustCompile(`([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\+([a-zA-Z]+)`)},
	{repl: `plus`, match: regexp.MustCompile(`\+`)},
	{repl: `-`, match: regexp.MustCompile(`[^a-zA-Z0-9_\-.]`)},
	{repl: `-`, match: regexp.MustCompile(`[_\-]{2,}`)},
	{repl: `unix-tree`, match: regexp.MustCompile(`^tree$`)},
}

// Return format for pkgbuild

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