Using guix time-machine results in unsupported manifest format error

Hi,

Im on commit 729ce5f and Im running: guix time-machine --commit=7e8e070

-- package -i hello

and it outputs:

guix package: error: unsupported manifest format

I have tried nesting time-machine as well like:

guix time-machine --commit=<oldcommit> -- time-machine

--commit=<somecommit> -- package -i hello

but it gives the same error.

Any ideas?

Regards,

David

Hi,

On dim., 02 oct. 2022 at 13:17, david larsson <david.larsson@selfhosted.xyz> wrote:

It is probably because an issue with version of manifest; e.g, fixed by

67a6828b2bb821274757f686f7c685b664339a96. See https://issues.guix.gnu.org/57306.

What does

$ cat ~/.guix-profile/manifest | grep -A 1 manifest

report?

Cheers,

simon

On 2022-10-02 19:02, zimoun wrote:

[..]

Note that the commit I'm on, is from 2 days ago, which is after the fix

commit you're mentioning.

(manifest

(version 4)

Not sure it matters, but Im able to run guix time-machine

--commit=<somecommit> -- describe but not package -i <somepackage>

Best regards,

David

Hi,

On Sun, 02 Oct 2022 at 20:57, david larsson <david.larsson@selfhosted.xyz> wrote:

Yes, note that the earlier mentioned commit

7e8e07033d2a6b0ecef566a05084c534c774cd4a is from Oct 2021 if I read

correctly.

IIUC, ’describe’ reads from ~/.config/guix/current/manifest and here the

issue is from ~/.guix-profile/manifest.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think the issue is coming from an

incompatibility about the version of ~/.guix-profile/manifest.

This manifest is at the version 4. When you run

guix time-machine --commit=<commit> -- package -i hello

then I guess it works or not depending on <commit>.

The manifest file ~/.guix-profile/manifest needs to be updated and there

is a conflict because some versions of the profile manifest. For

instance, consider two profiles generated using 2 different revisions of

Guix – a recent one and an old one:

and

Now, consider the recent profile named /tmp/new and try to install a

previous package from an old commit,

The old Guix uses version 3 and cannot read/write version 4 and bang!

Let try the converse,

This profile /tmp/old is thus converted from version 3 to version 4, and

then, reusing old version of Guix fails,

Well, I do not know if a fix is possible. The issue is a

backward compatibility issue.

Cheers,

simon

Hi,

This issue is about the upgrade of manifest version from 3 to 4. For

references,

http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/58247

On Mon, 03 Oct 2022 at 00:10, zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:

Ludo, what is your insight on that matter? Is it fixable? Or do we

mark the issue as ’wontfix’?

Cheers,

simon

On 2022-10-03 00:10, zimoun wrote:

[..]

Hi,

Thanks for the clarification.

I imagine it would be possible to give it a dirty fix, approximately as

you just showed with /tmp/old, if you also just readd the default

profile's currently installed packages to it at the end. So, if using

~/.guix-profile, it would be something like:

1. Say your ~/.guix-profile is at commit=XYZ

2. build a NEW profile with the old package ONLY, from commit=ABC (as in

/tmp/old)

3. guix pull /tmp/old "back" to commit=XYZ

4. install remaining packages that was in your ~/.guix-profile to

/tmp/old.

5. mv the ~/.guix-profile symlink to /tmp/old.

( /tmp/old should just be in /var/guix/profiles/per-user/$USER as normal

)

Building a new package generation like this would not be the same as

usual, cuz the currently installed packages may come from different guix

revisions. That might be a dealbreaker for fixing it. I do think it's

very sad though, that the time-machine is kind of broken whenever the

manifest gets a new version, with no hint even to the user how to find a

solution.

Best regards,

David

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> skribis:

David wrote:

This use case cannot be fixed: you cannot use an old Guix (one that only

understood manifest version 3) to manipulate a “new” profile (manifest

version 4). That’s a fundamental limitation of old software being

unable to deal with new formats in general.

One way to work around it is to have that old ‘guix’ operate on a fresh

profile (thus it’ll be version 3):

rm -f /tmp/old-stuff

guix time-machine --commit=7e8e070 -- package -i hello -p /tmp/old-stuff

or, better yet, to use ‘guix shell’ or ‘guix environment’:

guix time-machine --commit=7e8e070 -- \

environment --ad-hoc hello -- hello

I’m closing this bug.

Thanks,

Ludo’.

tags 58247 wontfix

close 58247

quit