The following failure will make makepkg still exit with return code 0: % PKGEXT=.tar makepkg -srief ... ==> Installing package awesome-git with pacman -U... error: failed to init transaction (unable to lock database) error: could not lock database: File exists if you're sure a package manager is not already running, you can remove /var/lib/pacman/db.lck ==> WARNING: Failed to install built package(s). The code: if ! run_pacman -U "${pkglist[@]}"; then warning "$(gettext "Failed to install built package(s).")" return 0 fi It seems to be done intentionally: tree 2b824312ec75e6bf3e3247ebd28d5335f61d9190 parent 7370fd595bc0447e7c17135e3a27cc3ae64015d4 author Allan McRae Sun Mar 29 16:49:57 2009 +1000 committer Allan McRae Sun Mar 29 16:49:57 2009 +1000 makepkg: do not bail on failure to install built package Fixes FS#13417. Do no exit makepkg on a failure to install the built package(s). This allows clean-up to still occur. Signed-off-by: Allan McRae diff --git a/scripts/makepkg.sh.in b/scripts/makepkg.sh.in index ff2663b..716c5a9 100644 --- a/scripts/makepkg.sh.in +++ b/scripts/makepkg.sh.in @@ -1071,10 +1071,16 @@ install_package() { pkglist="${pkglist} $PKGDEST/${pkg}-${pkgver}-${pkgrel}-${CARCH}${PKGEXT}" done + local ret=0 if [ "$ASROOT" -eq 0 ]; then - sudo pacman $PACMAN_OPTS -U ${pkglist} || exit $? + sudo pacman $PACMAN_OPTS -U ${pkglist} || ret=$? else - pacman $PACMAN_OPTS -U ${pkglist} || exit $? + pacman $PACMAN_OPTS -U ${pkglist} || ret=$? + fi + + if [ $ret -ne 0 ]; then + warning "$(gettext "Failed to install built package(s).")" + return 0 fi } Since the whole purpose of this appears to be running the clean-up in case of errors, the following would work: --- /usr/bin/makepkg 2016-03-31 15:59:32.028531972 +0200 +++ /tmp/makepkg.new 2016-03-31 15:59:27.255110641 +0200 @@ -1426,7 +1427,7 @@ if ! run_pacman -U "${pkglist[@]}"; then warning "$(gettext "Failed to install built package(s).")" - return 0 + return 1 fi } @@ -2393,7 +2394,7 @@ msg "$(gettext "Finished making: %s")" "$pkgbase $basever ($(date))" -install_package +install_package || exit $? exit 0 #E_OK (just a proof of concept, there are other calls to install_package) My use case is a script to rebuild and install a package locally, and this should abort also in case of install failures. The workaround might be to not use `-i` with `makepkg`, but run `pacman` on the generated package instead. Thanks, Daniel.