[gentoo-user] Portage detects fake "world file problems" and packages that don't exist

Nikos Chantziaras

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Jan 8, 2022, 3:50:03 PM1/8/22

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This is weird. When doing:

emerge -auDU @world

Portage says:

============
!!! Problems have been detected with your world file
!!! Please run emaint --check world

!!! Ebuilds for the following packages are either all
!!! masked or don't exist:
media-sound/pavucontrol media-sound/pulseeffects sys-block/gparted

Nothing to merge; quitting.
============

My world file is fine and "emaint --check world" doesn't find anything.
Also, all these packages that portage claims are masked or don't exist
are not masked and they exist.

This is on ~amd64.

I'm stumped :-/

Jack

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Jan 8, 2022, 6:10:04 PM1/8/22

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If nothing else, I would start by adding a --verbose to that emerge
command. It may just confuse you worse, but it might add some useful
info.

Nikos Chantziaras

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Jan 8, 2022, 6:20:04 PM1/8/22

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Did that already. No additional info is shown.

Neil Bothwick

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Jan 9, 2022, 5:10:05 AM1/9/22

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Have you edited your world file manually? I wonder if you could have
introduced some non-ASCII characters or changed line endings - something
that portage objects to but emaint doesn't.

If that sounds like clutching at straws, it's because it is.

--
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 19: Passive aggression

Peter Humphrey

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Jan 9, 2022, 12:50:03 PM1/9/22

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On Sunday, 9 January 2022 10:00:52 GMT Neil Bothwick wrote:

> Top Oxymorons Number 19: Passive aggression

> Top Oxymorons Number 20: Emotional intelligence.

--
Regards,
Peter.

Nikos Chantziaras

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Jan 9, 2022, 4:10:04 PM1/9/22

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On 09/01/2022 12:00, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 22:44:08 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>

>> emerge -auDU @world

>>
>> !!! Problems have been detected with your world file
>> !!! Please run emaint --check world
>>
>>
>> !!! Ebuilds for the following packages are either all
>> !!! masked or don't exist:
>> media-sound/pavucontrol media-sound/pulseeffects sys-block/gparted
>>

>> My world file is fine and "emaint --check world" doesn't find anything.
>

> Have you edited your world file manually? I wonder if you could have
> introduced some non-ASCII characters or changed line endings - something
> that portage objects to but emaint doesn't.

I checked and there's nothing weird in there. I even deleted the world
file, and then recreated it by doing "emerge --noreplace" all these
packages. Portage then re-created the world file.

Same result.

I then spend some time trying to find the packages that cause the
problem. I tracked it down to media-sound/pulseeffects. If I remove just
that one package from the world file, then the error message is gone,
but also "emerge -uDU @world" is now much faster.

This package is probably triggering a portage bug.

Nikos Chantziaras

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Jan 11, 2022, 2:00:04 AM1/11/22

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On 08/01/2022 22:44, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> This is weird. When doing:
>
> emerge -auDU @world
>
> Portage says:
>
> ============
> !!! Problems have been detected with your world file
> !!! Please run emaint --check world
>
>
> !!! Ebuilds for the following packages are either all
> !!! masked or don't exist:
> media-sound/pavucontrol media-sound/pulseeffects sys-block/gparted
>
> Nothing to merge; quitting.
> ============

It was a bug and it's fixed now: https://bugs.gentoo.org/830881