GPGME error possibly related to libgcrypt update. Can't pacman :(

Question

I'm getting the GPGME error: Invalid crypto engine message.
I just recently updated a pc that has limited diskspace (5G on / ) and has been dormant for 3 months.  Due to both of those factors, when I went to do an update of packages I had to do it piecemeal such that the download and extraction didn't fill up the / partition. I must have dorked up the system with the piecemeal upgrade because after updating libgcrypt in one of my updates I began to  get this error.
To get around the problem I simply set SigLevel = Never in /etc/pacman.conf as suggested by other posts. I completed the upgrade and put back SigLevel to its previous status. However when I tried a simple litmus test I still see that there are GPGME errors.
[arch@arch ~]$ sudo pacman -Syu feh
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core is up to date
extra is up to date
community is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
Packages (1) feh-2.12.1-1
Total Download Size: 0.17 MiB
Total Installed Size: 0.40 MiB
:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]
:: Retrieving packages ...
feh-2.12.1-1-i686 176.2 KiB 1224K/s 00:00 [######################] 100%
(1/1) checking keys in keyring [######################] 100%
error: GPGME error: Invalid crypto engine
(1/1) checking package integrity [######################] 100%
error: GPGME error: Invalid crypto engine
error: feh: missing required signature
:: File /var/cache/pacman/pkg/feh-2.12.1-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz is corrupted (invalid or corrupted package (PGP signature)).
Do you want to delete it? [Y/n] n
error: failed to commit transaction (invalid or corrupted package (PGP signature))
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
I'm not sure what else to post to aid in finding the root problem.
$ pacman -Qi libgcrypt
Name : libgcrypt
Version : 1.6.3-2
Description : General purpose cryptographic library based on the code from GnuPG
Architecture : i686
URL : [url]http://www.gnupg.org[/url]
Licenses : LGPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : libgpg-error>=1.10-2
Optional Deps : None
Required By : chromium cryptsetup libsecret libsystemd libxslt smbclient systemd xorg-server
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 927.00 KiB
Packager : Andreas Radke <[email protected]>
Build Date : Sat 28 Feb 2015 01:24:35 PM EST
Install Date : Mon 20 Apr 2015 12:40:18 AM EDT
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script : Yes
Validated By : SHA256 Sum
$ pacman -Qi gpgme
Name : gpgme
Version : 1.5.3-1
Description : A C wrapper library for GnuPG
Architecture : i686
URL : [url]http://www.gnupg.org/related_software/gpgme/[/url]
Licenses : LGPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : libgpg-error pth gnupg>=2
Optional Deps : None
Required By : pacman
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 805.00 KiB
Packager : Tobias Powalowski <[email protected]>
Build Date : Tue 16 Dec 2014 10:45:36 AM EST
Install Date : Tue 23 Dec 2014 01:55:27 PM EST
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script : Yes
Validated By : Signature
Name : libgpg-error
Version : 1.18-1
Description : Support library for libgcrypt
Architecture : i686
URL : [url]http://www.gnupg.org[/url]
Licenses : LGPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : glibc sh
Optional Deps : None
Required By : gpgme libassuan libgcrypt libksba
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 768.00 KiB
Packager : Andreas Radke <[email protected]>
Build Date : Thu 29 Jan 2015 03:59:41 PM EST
Install Date : Sun 19 Apr 2015 11:51:48 PM EDT
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script : Yes
Validated By : SHA256 Sum
I've stumbled upon several posts dealing with this issue from about a year ago but none have helped me solve it.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=175639
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 4#p1370454
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=175643
Any help resolving this is appreciated.

Answer 1

I'm too lazy to read your whole post, so have you tried booting to archiso and updating from the live system (not a chroot to the install) using the -r flag?
PACMAN(8) wrote:OPTIONS
       -r, --root <path>
           Specify an alternative installation root (default is /). This should not
           be used as a way to install software into /usr/local instead of /usr.
           This option is used if you want to install a package on a temporarily
           mounted partition that is "owned" by another system.  NOTE: If database
           path or log file are not specified on either the command line or in
           pacman.conf(5), their default location will be inside this root path.
In the future (once the installed system is working again) you could try specifying a different CacheDir if /var/cache/pacman/pkg is on the same fs as / .
Last edited by alphaniner (2015-04-24 18:16:17)