jdx/mise · error

pacman -Q failed: {}

Error message

pacman -Q failed: {}

What it means

pacman_query runs `pacman -Q` (optionally with groups/queries files) and validates the result: success with no stderr, or exit code 1 when the only problem is missing packages (`only_missing`). Any other combination bails with the trimmed stderr, signaling a real pacman failure rather than a benign 'not installed'.

Source

Thrown at src/system/packages/pacman.rs:344

                .strip_suffix("' was not found")
        })
        .filter(|name| names.iter().any(|requested| requested == name))
        .collect::<HashSet<_>>();
    let only_missing = !missing.is_empty()
        && stderr.lines().all(|line| {
            line.trim().is_empty()
                || missing.iter().any(|name| {
                    line == format!("error: package '{name}' was not found")
                        || line
                            == format!(
                                "warning: '{name}' is a file, you might want to use -p/--file."
                            )
                })
        });
    let valid_result = (output.status.success() && stderr.is_empty())
        || (output.status.code() == Some(1) && only_missing);
    if !valid_result {
        bail!("pacman -Q failed: {}", stderr.trim());
    }
    Ok(String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stdout).into_owned())
}

async fn pacman_deptest(names: &[String]) -> Result<String> {
    if names.is_empty() {
        return Ok(String::new());
    }
    let mut args = vec!["-T", "--"];
    args.extend(names.iter().map(String::as_str));
    debug!("$ pacman {}", args.join(" "));
    let output = tokio::process::Command::new("pacman")
        .args(&args)
        .env("LC_ALL", "C")
        .stdin(Stdio::null())
        .stdout(Stdio::piped())
        .stderr(Stdio::piped())
        .output()

View on GitHub (pinned to afd2eddd3a)

Solutions

1. Run the exact `pacman -Q ...` command manually and read the stderr in the error
2. Fix or rebuild the pacman local database if corruption is reported (e.g. remove /var/lib/pacman/local.lock, run `pacman -D --asdeps` repairs as appropriate)
3. Correct package/group names in the config; nonexistent groups are not treated as 'missing'
4. Ensure the system actually uses pacman (Arch/derivatives) before enabling the pacman provider

pacman -Q >/dev/null 2>&1 || echo "pacman local DB unhealthy"

match pacman_query(&args).await {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("pacman -Q failed") => {
        eprintln!("pacman query failed beyond missing packages: {e}");
    }
    other => other?,
}

When it happens

Trigger: `pacman -Q` exits with a status other than 0, or exits 1 with stderr that includes errors beyond merely missing packages (e.g. unknown group, corrupt local DB, invalid argument), or stderr is non-empty even on success.

Common situations: Querying a group name that doesn't exist locally; corrupted /var/lib/pacman/local database; running on non-Arch systems with a leftover pacman; malformed query file input producing argument errors.

Related errors

• pacman -Qi failed: {}
• pacman -Q returned no package for satisfied requirement '{}'
• {program} failed with {status}
• rpm -q failed: {}
• flatpak {action} failed: {}

AI-assisted analysis of jdx/mise@afd2eddd3a (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fddd60bd85f59aa4. Report an issue: GitHub.