02-Oct-2016 in Linux #Arch Linux

Invalid or corrupted package (PGP signature) during pacman sync / install

I've been using Linux off and on for the last 20 years. I'm currently moving back to Arch Linux after a short stint on OS X (now MacOS). I am quite the Arch noob but I've been completely taken by it's simplicity and wasn't turned off by high barrier of entry to install.

That said, as a novice, I'm still in that "WTF is broken now??!?" phase where I'm fighting with my system quite a bit. Today I was trying to get my MacBook Pro completely battle ready as I can attack October full on Linux. That's when I started to encounter issues syncing (reads: installing) certain packages with pacman.

The error was quite simple, there was a problem with either the signature or the package itself. pacman would ask if I wanted to delete the package and that would be the end of it.

I got to searching the web and found a mixed lot of solutions but nothing that seemed to work. Thinking back to a similar issue I've had on other distros, I decided to look into how to blow away the keys that pacman was using so I could have a fresh start.

sudo rm -R /etc/pacman.d/gnupg
sudo pacman-key --init
sudo pacman -Syy
sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux
sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S package

Was a tad bit nuclear but it got things working again!

I do think the steps could have been simplified a bit. I'm sure as I learn more about Arch and it's quirks I'll be revisiting this and simplifying things a bit.