[arch-general] mandb errors bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request??

[David C. Rankin]

All,

  I have noticed the mandb becoming corrupt several times over the past month.
It usually straightens itself out, but this is the 3rd time I've encountered
this problem in the past 60 days or so. The symptoms are man being unable to
find installed pages, e.g.

$ apropos ssh
ssh: nothing appropriate.

$ man mandb
mandb: nothing appropriate.

$ find /usr/share/man/ -type f -name "mandb*"
/usr/share/man/it/man8/mandb.8.gz
/usr/share/man/es/man8/mandb.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/mandb.8.gz

$ man 8 mandb   (works fine)

# mandb -t
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man3/pcredemo.3.gz: whatis parse for pcredemo(3)
failed
<snip>
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man3/wayland-util.c.3: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man3/wl_abort.3.gz: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't open /usr/share/man/man3/wayland-server.h.3: No such file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man3/wl_client_add_resource.3.gz: bad symlink or
ROFF `.so' request
<snip several hundred more>
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man8/saslauthd.8.gz: whatis parse for
saslauthd(8) failed
mandb: warning: can't update index cache /var/cache/man/index.db: No such file
or directory
mandb: warning: can't update index cache /var/cache/man/ru.KOI8-R/index.db: No
such file or directory
mandb: warning: can't update index cache /var/cache/man/id/index.db: No such
file or directory
mandb: warning: can't update index cache /var/cache/man/de/index.db: No such
file or directory
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/jp/man1/cd-paranoia.1.gz: whatis parse for
cd-paranoia(1) failed
mandb: warning: can't update index cache /var/cache/man/jp/index.db: No such
file or directory
<snip ~30 more>

Any idea what is causing the corruption?


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.