This was noted when trying to perform an operation on a pacman database on a read-only file system. Print the actual underlying errno string, and only show the "you can remove" message if the lock file actually exists. Before: $ pacman -Su error: failed to init transaction (unable to lock database) if you're sure a package manager is not already running, you can remove /e/db.lck After: $ pacman -Su error: failed to init transaction (unable to lock database) error: could not lock database: Read-only file system Signed-off-by: Dan McGee <dan@archlinux.org> --- src/pacman/util.c | 10 +++++++--- 1 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/pacman/util.c b/src/pacman/util.c index 0b076d9..f7f8ecf 100644 --- a/src/pacman/util.c +++ b/src/pacman/util.c @@ -69,9 +69,13 @@ void trans_init_error(void) pm_printf(ALPM_LOG_ERROR, _("failed to init transaction (%s)\n"), alpm_strerror(err)); if(err == ALPM_ERR_HANDLE_LOCK) { - fprintf(stderr, _(" if you're sure a package manager is not already\n" - " running, you can remove %s\n"), - alpm_option_get_lockfile(config->handle)); + const char *lockfile = alpm_option_get_lockfile(config->handle); + pm_printf(ALPM_LOG_ERROR, _("could not lock database: %s\n"), + strerror(errno)); + if(access(lockfile, F_OK) == 0) { + fprintf(stderr, _(" if you're sure a package manager is not already\n" + " running, you can remove %s\n"), lockfile); + } } } -- 1.7.9.1