[arch] pacman-optimize strange behavior

[Branko Vukelic]

First of all, Happy New Year, Archers! Too bad 0.8 didn't make it in time to 
become a New Year's gift of choice. But, as they say, better later than 
unstable. ;-)

Anyhow, I read this earlier today:

On Monday 01. January 2007. 18:17, Dale Blount wrote:

> Try running pacman-optimize.
>
> Dale

So, I tried running pacman-optimize, just to see if it would speed up the 
database (or whatever it speeds up), and I even got a bonus...

I ran pacman -Syu. Sure it responded faster than before, but with this:

-----------------------------------screen output-----------------------------
[root at foxen1 archbunny]# pacman -Syu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 current                  [################] 100%      71K    11.7K/s  
00:00:06
 extra                    [################] 100%     272K    13.8K/s  
00:00:19
:: unstable is up to date
:: community is up to date
 danimoth                 [################] 100%       2K     3.8K/s  
00:00:00

Targets: cdrkit-1.1.1-1 libldap-2.3.31-1 libmysqlclient-5.0.27-1
         mysql-clients-5.0.27-1 mysql-5.0.27-2 ntp-4.2.4-1

Total Package Size:   16.6 MB

Proceed with upgrade? [Y/n] Y

:: Retrieving packages from current...
warning: failed to get filesize for cdrkit-1.1.1-1.pkg.tar.gz

failed downloading cdrkit-1.1.1-1.pkg.tar.gz from ftp.archlinux.org: 550 
Failed to open file.


warning: failed to get filesize for libldap-2.3.31-1.pkg.tar.gz

failed downloading libldap-2.3.31-1.pkg.tar.gz from ftp.archlinux.org: 550 
Failed to open file.


warning: failed to get filesize for libmysqlclient-5.0.27-1.pkg.tar.gz

failed downloading libmysqlclient-5.0.27-1.pkg.tar.gz from ftp.archlinux.org: 
550 Failed to open file.


warning: failed to get filesize for mysql-clients-5.0.27-1.pkg.tar.gz

failed downloading mysql-clients-5.0.27-1.pkg.tar.gz from ftp.archlinux.org: 
550 Failed to open file.


warning: failed to get filesize for mysql-5.0.27-2.pkg.tar.gz

-------------------------------end screen output-----------------------------

Also, it didn't upgrade the packages and it would probably just go on 
splitting the messages forever if I hadn't hit Ctrl+C. But when I ran it 
twice in a row, it found new (and completely different) upgrades (!!!) and 
split the same message for each package, again until I hit Ctrl+C. Finally, I 
ran it for the third time, and it apparently thought the upgrades were 
installed. Now, I'm not sure if the packages were already upgraded yesterday. 
I checked the versions with pacman -Qs, and the installed packages in the 
database are the same as the upgrades pacman was trying to install. For 
example:

-----------------------------------screen output-----------------------------
[root at foxen1 archbunny]# pacman -Qs mysql
local/libmysqlclient 5.0.26-1
    MySQL client libraries
local/mysql 5.0.27-1
    A fast SQL database server
local/mysql-clients 5.0.26-1
    MySQL client libraries
-------------------------------end screen output-----------------------------

Later, I installed one package just to make sure the db was okay (if alive at 
all), and the results were ok:

-----------------------------------screen output-----------------------------
[root at foxen1 archbunny]# pacman -S wmii

Targets: wmii-3.1-3

Total Package Size:   0.1 MB

Proceed with upgrade? [Y/n] Y

:: Retrieving packages from community...
 wmii-3.1-3               [################] 100%      72K    11.6K/s  
00:00:06

checking package integrity... done.
loading package data... done.
checking for file conflicts... done.
installing wmii... done.
-------------------------------end screen output-----------------------------

It seems everything is back to normal, but it sure didn't look good at the 
beginning. Just thought you should all know about this.

I tried running pacman-optimize again, just to make sure. This time the error 
persists. It seems it cannot open the files glibmm-2.12.4-1 and 
libwnck-2.16.2-1 on any of the Arch mirrors, so it cycles through the list 
(persumably until it reaches the end of the list).

Any suggestions about how to troubleshoot this one?

Best,

Branko