Arch Linux

JonL

Member

Registered: 2021-06-05

Posts: 10

Corrupted Databases from mirrors.kernel.org

The databases from mirrors.kernel.org seem to have become corrupted sometime in the last few hours, attempting to update from it just results in pacman spamming a bunch of errors to the terminal.

Editing the mirrorlist to use mirrors.lug.mtu.edu appears to have corrected it but I've also saved the corrupted ones in case they're needed

:: Starting full system upgrade...
error: could not read db 'core' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
error: could not read db 'core' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
warning: rhvoice-voice-dasha-blr: unknown key '1775216056' in sync database
error: could not read db 'extra-testing' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
warning: rhvoice-voice-dasha-blr: unknown key '1775216056' in sync database
error: could not read db 'extra-testing' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
warning: arduino-language-server: unknown key '%PACKAGER%Orhun Parmaksız <orhunt@archlinux.org>' in sync database
error: could not read db 'extra' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
warning: arduino-language-server: unknown key '%PACKAGER%Orhun Parmaksız <orhunt@archlinux.org>' in sync database
error: could not read db 'extra' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
error: could not read db 'core' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
error: could not read db 'core' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
warning: rhvoice-voice-dasha-blr: unknown key '1775216056' in sync database
error: could not read db 'extra-testing' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))
warning: rhvoice-voice-dasha-blr: unknown key '1775216056' in sync database
-snip-

11277782 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 125K Apr 20 04:56 core.db
11279781 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 125K Apr 20 04:56 core.db.corrupted
11280803 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 9.3K Apr 20 05:45 core-testing.db
11279715 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 8.7K Apr 20 04:56 core-testing.db.corrupted
11280634 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 8.2M Apr 20 07:54 extra.db
11278577 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 8.2M Apr 20 05:01 extra.db.corrupted
11280623 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 161K Apr 20 06:04 extra-testing.db
11277817 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 167K Apr 20 05:04 extra-testing.db.corrupted
11280738 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 128K Apr 20 06:04 multilib.db
11278821 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 127K Apr 20 01:08 multilib.db.corrupted
11280693 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 1.7K Apr 20 06:04 multilib-testing.db
11278007 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 4.0K Apr 20 05:03 multilib-testing.db.corrupted

bac007b30ca764a5579aa5a4ff577ccb  core.db
efec2b0bd842d82c0cb8977df9dcf294  core.db.corrupted
657205ad8584232100c2fa83f3859106  core-testing.db
63f201a4b5c69e561a555e06f491bb58  core-testing.db.corrupted
ce114385e6a74a38bac6e0d8d936e4d3  extra.db
00515579f10361d527ccba8857ad8dc9  extra.db.corrupted
1db64d6feb5ddeefed2e7e91271a8d43  extra-testing.db
cfc71760d2e09ef5c6e82cbe565338f6  extra-testing.db.corrupted
729d3d2198a3d0a8bd299164cb8a82b9  multilib.db
06f0f7ed7e0e16a7b95508a3aff28577  multilib.db.corrupted
595ebbd1f101de782254d2f2b1250c0e  multilib-testing.db
e5ee8ca51ab389a72421d84747a12e21  multilib-testing.db.corrupted

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 74,647

Re: Corrupted Databases from mirrors.kernel.org

https://archlinux.org/mirrors/kernel.org/508/
Mirror seems properly synced but w/ connection problems.
See also https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=312490

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

JonL

Member

Registered: 2021-06-05

Posts: 10

Re: Corrupted Databases from mirrors.kernel.org

Interesting, I thought maybe it was just truncated but some of the corrupted databases were larger than the seemingly good ones

When I searched for the key named in the error message this thread was the only result, which is never a good sign.

There is a valid key for Orhun but there's no trailing 't' in the email address

https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup … 824B3E4B90

jgodden

Member

Registered: 2025-06-05

Posts: 6

Re: Corrupted Databases from mirrors.kernel.org

It would be quite instructive to learn what steps JonL (and others) took to discover that it was a problem with the mirrors and not some local db/filesystem corruption.

I saw this dramatic error ("error: could not read db 'core' (Damaged tar archive (bad header checksum))" rapidly repeated forever) did a reflector refresh, did a local remove "/var/libpacman/sync/*" and refresh and had all but concluded that my harddrive partition was corrupted (fsck was next).

That is, after a mirror refresh and a check of the mirror status page https://archlinux.org/mirrors/status/  how would one avoid jumping to the wrong conclusion that it wasn't the mirrors?  Impressive deduction, folks!

Last edited by jgodden (Yesterday 14:37:45)

JonL

Member

Registered: 2021-06-05

Posts: 10

Re: Corrupted Databases from mirrors.kernel.org

It was fairly simple to rule out local corruption, I renamed the databases and redownloaded them from a different location before changing servers. If I had noticed there were no hits on that I would have been more discreet is all

Last edited by JonL (Yesterday 15:29:44)