nix-channel error: opening pseudoterminal master: No such device

I recently started getting this error:

$ nix-channel --update

unpacking channels...

error: opening pseudoterminal master: No such device

error: program '/gnu/store/77sxsc9awh98pg4y1iab195adls6bbm8-nix-2.5.1/bin/nix-env'

failed with exit code 1

should I report this to nix instead?

tried running it in xfce-terminal and in a TTY

using the nix shepherd service

guix version c8e599b

Just here to state that I am also getting this error whilst using the

nix shepherd service. (I'm on an up-to-date guix system).

You can have a look at

which solves the problem.

--

Retrieve my PGP public key:

gpg --recv-keys B3EBC086AB0EBC0F45E0B4D433DB374BCEE4D9DC

Zihao

Thank you Zihao, I did notice the patch at the time but I didn't assume

that it had fixed the issue.

I will stay patient for when it will be pushed upstream. Thank you for

your efforts.

Regards,

Haider Mirza

I'm still receiving the same error. I tested a variant of Zhu's patch by defining my own custom Nix package that sticks very closely to Zhu's, just with manpages and docs generation disabled. I can confirm Nix is running latest: nix (Nix) 2.16.0.

This is the first time I've done any kind of Guix hacking so it's a bit rough. Here's my custom Nix package.

(define-public my-nix

(package

(inherit nix)

(name "nix")

(version "2.16.0")

(inputs (modify-inputs (package-inputs nix)

(append rapidcheck nlohmann-json)))

(source

(origin

(method git-fetch)

(uri (git-reference

(url "https://github.com/NixOS/nix")

(commit version)))

(file-name (git-file-name name version))

(sha256

(base32 "0jizpci4zspqpqqy3n780m4wh8dzhfywaiz953xv70c7in810dra"))))

(arguments

`(#:configure-flags '("--disable-doc-gen")

#:phases

(modify-phases %standard-phases

(replace 'check

(lambda args

;; Some tests expect environment variable NIX_STORE to be

;; "/nix/store"

(let ((original-NIX_STORE (getenv "NIX_STORE")))

(dynamic-wind

(lambda ()

(setenv "NIX_STORE" "/nix/store"))

(lambda ()

(apply (assoc-ref %standard-phases 'check) args))

(lambda ()

(setenv "NIX_STORE" original-NIX_STORE)))))))))))

Attempting to run devbox shell returns

Error: Command: /run/current-system/profile/bin/nix print-dev-env /home/worldofgeese/Downloads/projects/little_bits_of_buddha/.devbox/gen/flake/flake.nix --extra-experimental-features ca-derivations --option experimental-features nix-command flakes --json: exit status 1

[DEBUG] 2023/06/23 09:38:50 go.jetpack.io/devbox/internal/boxcli/midcobra/debug.go:72: Command stderr: path '/home/worldofgeese/Downloads/projects/little_bits_of_buddha/.devbox/gen/flake/flake.nix' does not contain a 'flake.nix', searching up

warning: Git tree '/home/worldofgeese/Downloads/projects/little_bits_of_buddha/.devbox/gen/flake' is dirty

error: opening pseudoterminal master: No such device.

Devbox is a Nix package available from the Nixpkgs repositories intended for local development using Nix flakes.

Perhaps this is a permissions issue with the nix shepherd service? I

haven't tried the patch linked above, but found that I could run

$ sudo nix-channel --update

without running into the issue. Then, I got the same error again when

trying to install any package with nix-env. Once again, I could run

$ sudo nix-env -i <some-package>

which would successfully install it to the root profile. After doing

this, however, I found that I now could run

$ nix-env -i <some-package>

to install the package to my user profile, presumably because the nix

store was populated by the run with sudo.

block 63546 by 63893

For What Its Worth (fwiw): I found that restarting the nix-daemon shepherd service makes this issue go away for me.

Not sure what is the underlying cause, but thought I'd mention it for others.

Kind regards,

--

Collin J. Doering

Wow, thank you for the tempoary workaround.

It's quite obscure that it works though.