[gentoo-user] Oddity in eix database

[gentoo-user] Oddity in eix database

[Peter Humphrey]

Hello list,

What's gone wrong here?

$ eix-test-obsolete

No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.keywords.
No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords.
No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.mask.
No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.use.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.env.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.license.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.accept_restrict.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags.
The following installed packages are not in the database:

virtual/-MERGING-perl-CPAN-Meta-YAML
--
[...]

I have no YAML installed, virtual or otherwise. Running as root makes no 
difference. I run eix-update as part of my daily sync.

It'd be good to remove the offending entry, even though it seems to be doing 
no harm. How would I go about that? 

-- 
Rgds
Peter.

[gentoo-user] Re: Oddity in eix database

[Martin Vaeth]

Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> The following installed packages are not in the database:
>
> virtual/-MERGING-perl-CPAN-Meta-YAML

portage generates such a directory or file in /var/db/pkg
when it is merging the package. When portage exits
(even uncleanly), this entry should be removed.

If it still exists, it means that portage died in a bad
way (strange error, power failure or kill -9 signal).

It is safe to remove this file/dir from /var/db/pkg,
but I would recommend to re-emerge the corresponding package
(perl-CPAN-Meta-YAML in your case):
It might be that portage has partially merged some
files of the package but not yet all of them, or
something similar. You might get collision messages
when you try to re-emerge.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Oddity in eix database

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday 20 November 2014 16:26:40 Martin Vaeth wrote:
> Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> > The following installed packages are not in the database:
> > 
> > virtual/-MERGING-perl-CPAN-Meta-YAML
> 
> portage generates such a directory or file in /var/db/pkg
> when it is merging the package. When portage exits
> (even uncleanly), this entry should be removed.
> 
> If it still exists, it means that portage died in a bad
> way (strange error, power failure or kill -9 signal).
> 
> It is safe to remove this file/dir from /var/db/pkg,
> but I would recommend to re-emerge the corresponding package
> (perl-CPAN-Meta-YAML in your case):
> It might be that portage has partially merged some
> files of the package but not yet all of them, or
> something similar. You might get collision messages
> when you try to re-emerge.

Ah, I see. So I have now removed the offending directory. I didn't have that 
package installed (so I don't know why it left that directory, dated 6 Nov), 
but I emerged it single-shot, then ran emerge --depclean, which removed it 
again.

Everything tidied up neatly - thanks Martin.

-- 
Rgds
Peter.