Morganamilo/paru · error · anyhow::Error

{pacman stderr}

Error message

{pacman stderr}

What it means

set_install_reason runs `pacman -D --asdeps/--asexplicit` to mark installed packages and, when the command fails, surfaces pacman's stderr verbatim as the error. The message content is whatever pacman printed, e.g. 'error: target not found: <pkg>'.

Solutions

1. Read the stderr text in the error: it names the exact pacman failure (usually 'target not found')
2. Ensure the packages exist in the local pacman database before using --asdeps/--asexp
3. Re-run after resolving pacman db locks or syncing: sudo pacman -D --asdeps <pkg> directly to see full output

// check the package exists in the local db before --asdeps
pacman -Qi "$pkg" >/dev/null 2>&1 || echo "not installed: $pkg"

match set_install_reason(config, reason, pkgs) {
    Err(e) => eprintln!("pacman -D failed: {}", e), // stderr text names the target
    Ok(()) => {}
}

When it happens

Trigger: paru -S --asdeps (or --asexp) on packages, and exec::pacman_output returns a non-success status for `pacman -D database` (e.g. target package not installed or not owned by pacman).

Common situations: Marking packages as deps when a package was removed concurrently or installed outside pacman; permission/db lock issues also surface here via stderr.

Understand the failure class

Background: "API error: {status}" and "HTTP 401/403/404/429/5xx" errors: non-2xx HTTP responses explained — this error's family across 27 libraries.

Related errors

• no local repo named
• no local repos configured, add one to your pacman.conf: …
• can not find local repo
• value can not be empty for key
• key ' ' does not belong to a section

AI-assisted analysis of Morganamilo/paru@9ac3578807 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/53e73adbd8d0125c. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/install.rs:1560

}

fn set_install_reason<S: AsRef<str>>(config: &Config, reason: &str, pkgs: &[S]) -> Result<()> {
    let alpm = config.new_alpm()?;
    let db = alpm.localdb();

    let pkgs = pkgs
        .iter()
        .map(|s| s.as_ref())
        .filter(|p| db.pkg(*p).is_ok());

    let mut args = config.pacman_globals();
    args.op("database").arg(reason).targets(pkgs);
    if args.targets.is_empty() {
        return Ok(());
    }

    let output = exec::pacman_output(config, &args)?;
    ensure!(
        output.status.success(),
        "{}",
        String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stderr)
    );
    Ok(())
}

fn pre_build_command(config: &Config, dir: &Path, base: &str, version: &str) -> Result<()> {
    if let Some(ref pb_cmd) = config.pre_build_command {
        let mut cmd = Command::new("sh");
        cmd.env("PKGBASE", base)
            .env("VERSION", version)
            .current_dir(dir)
            .arg("-c")
            .arg(pb_cmd);
        exec::command(&mut cmd)?;
    }
    Ok(())

View on GitHub (pinned to 9ac3578807)