Pacman throws "unrecognized archive format" error for .xz packages

Question

Hi,
I am recently getting the following error while installing packages which are in .xz format only.
for e.g.
sudo pacman -S pacman  //works fine. as it is packaged in a .gz format
sudo pacman -S xterm     // error while reading pakage /var/cache/pacman/pkg/xterm-261-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz  -- unrecognized archive format: Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character.
I tried using the -U switch to install it -- I got the following little different message:
$ sudo pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/xterm-261-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
error: error while reading pakage /var/cache/pacman/pkg/xterm-261-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz: unrecognized archive format: Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character.
error: '/var/cache/pacman/pkg/xterm-261-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz': libarchive error
I have libarchive-2.8.4-1 on my system ( I have reinstalled it. )
[more info]
I used ltrace to see what is happening, here is the trace around the point where I am getting the error:
alpm_trans_commit(,,, <unfinished ...>
    printf("checking package integrity...\n")
    fflush(...)
    dcgettext(0, 0x805x690, 5, ...) = 0x8058690  ---- AFAIK, this one gets local specific string
    fprintf(..., "error: ")
    vfprintf(..., "error while reading package %s:"...)
<... alpm_trans_commit(,,,) resumed> )
alpm_strerrorlast(...)
dcgettext()
dcgettext()
fprintf(... "error")
Last edited by prasadr (2010-09-22 18:40:31)

Answer 1

t@n6re ~]# ldd /usr/bin/pacman
        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fffc9bff000)
        libalpm.so.5 => /usr/lib/libalpm.so.5 (0x00007f4c44445000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f4c440e9000)
        libfetch.so => /usr/lib/libfetch.so (0x00007f4c43ed9000)
        libarchive.so.2 => /usr/lib/libarchive.so.2 (0x00007f4c43c96000)
        /lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f4c44668000)
        libssl.so.1.0.0 => /usr/lib/libssl.so.1.0.0 (0x00007f4c43a3a000)
        libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 (0x00007f4c4367e000)
        libacl.so.1 => /lib/libacl.so.1 (0x00007f4c43477000)
        libattr.so.1 => /lib/libattr.so.1 (0x00007f4c43273000)
        libexpat.so.1 => /usr/lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x00007f4c4304b000)
        liblzma.so.0 => /usr/lib/liblzma.so.0 (0x00007f4c42e29000)
        libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007f4c42c19000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x00007f4c42a01000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f4c427fd000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f4c425e0000)
[root@n6re ~]#