Morganamilo/paru · error

packages failed to build

Error message

packages failed to build: {}

What it means

After the build phase, build_cleanup checks the installer's failed list; if any packages failed to build, it aggregates their names and bails with "packages failed to build: <names>". This is the summary error reported when one or more AUR builds did not produce packages.

Solutions

1. Read each failed package's earlier build log to find the concrete makepkg error
2. Rebuild the failing package individually with --rebuild to see full output
3. Update the AUR package (or wait for the maintainer) if the PKGBUILD is outdated
4. Remove stale build directories in the cache and retry the failed subset

// build packages one at a time so one failure doesn't abort the batch
for pkg in targets {
    if let Err(e) = build_single(&pkg) { eprintln!("skipping {pkg}: {e}"); }
}

match resolve_targets() {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().starts_with("packages failed to build:") => {
        let failed: Vec<&str> = e.to_string().rsplit(": ").next().unwrap().split("  ").collect();
        eprintln!("retry individually: {failed:?}");
    }
    other => other?,
}

When it happens

Trigger: resolve_targets → build_cleanup with self.failed non-empty: any package whose makepkg build raised an error (compile failure, missing dependency, checksum mismatch) is collected into the failed list.

Common situations: Upstream source changed so checksums no longer match; compiler errors on current toolchain; missing makedepends; out-of-date PKGBUILD after an Arch update; building many packages where one fails and aborts the batch.

Understand the failure class

Background: "not installed", "pip install", "required for": how missing-dependency errors surface across open-source libraries — this error's family across 34 libraries.

Related errors

• {pacman exit code}
• package list does not match srcinfo
• can't build , deps not satisfied
• duplicate PKGBUILD
• {}: {}: {}

AI-assisted analysis of Morganamilo/paru@9ac3578807 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e4ff7b1e13566209. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/install.rs:451

                        .unwrap()
                        .path
                        .clone(),
                };

                if let Err(err) = clean_untracked(config, &path) {
                    print_error(config.color.error, err);
                    ret = 1;
                }
            }
        }

        if !self.failed.is_empty() {
            let failed = self
                .failed
                .iter()
                .map(|f| f.to_string())
                .collect::<Vec<_>>();
            bail!(tr!("packages failed to build: {}", failed.join("  ")));
        }

        if ret != 0 {
            Status::err(ret)
        } else {
            Ok(())
        }
    }

    fn debug_paths(
        &mut self,
        config: &Config,
        base: &mut Base,
        pkgdest: &HashMap<String, String>,
    ) -> Result<HashMap<String, String>> {
        let mut debug_paths = HashMap::new();

        if config.install_debug {

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