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How to save pamac output from failed build

I tried to install seamonkey (not seamonkey-bin), and after something like 3 hours, it failed. So, in the output window, I used the context menu to select all, copy, then opened gvim and tried to paste. Got the message nothing in the buffer. (Yes, I used the proper paste command - I've been using vim for a long time.) Returning to pamac, it was hung - wouldn't respond to any mouse actions, and the mouse cursor was a vertical line (text cursor) no matter where in the program I hovered. I had to kill it with -SIGTERM, and that worked.

A web search for how to save the output hasn't gotten me anything useful.

For future reference, how would I go about saving the build output?

This is in pamac-aur, not -gtk or -git. Fresh install.

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #1 –
I do not know about  pamac-aur, but you can use an AUR helper to install seamonkey and other AUR packages.
You will see it in the terminal errors etc.
For example there is galaxy/trizen.

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #2 –
When building a large (e.g kernel or web browser) or problematic package from source you are much better off building manually with git clone and  makepkg -s because you have far more control and it's easier to potentially resume failed builds, re-use the downloaded source or at least examine the remains for clues as to what went wrong, even after rebooting, and save some time. It's possible you were building in a tmpfs backed directory (which can be configured in the Pamac settings) and you ran out of RAM which is why nothing worked properly. In that situation you could still use a camera to get screenshots.
It's not very difficult either:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository
Also check the relevant man pages for the commands in question, and perhaps find some other online guides if required.
You can also run out of RAM with large packages even when building in an HDD located dir, the linking stage near the end often fails due to this. You should consider how much RAM you have per thread, if you are doing a default multiprocess build, because 8GB on a 16 thread CPU is less than 4GB on a twin thread CPU. You can set the number of parallel build jobs in various ways, e.g. in the PKGBUILD or makepkg config to reduce RAM requirements though.

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #3 –
Quote from: kiblaster – on
I do not know about  pamac-aur, but you can use an AUR helper to install seamonkey and other AUR packages.
You will see it in the terminal errors etc.
For example there is galaxy/trizen.
I will check on those. Also I wonder if I could use a pipe tee with yay.

Quote from: ####### – on
When building a large (e.g kernel or web browser) or problematic package from source you are much better off building manually with git clone and  makepkg -s because you have far more control and it's easier to potentially resume failed builds, re-use the downloaded source or at least examine the remains for clues as to what went wrong, even after rebooting, and save some time. It's possible you were building in a tmpfs backed directory (which can be configured in the Pamac settings) and you ran out of RAM which is why nothing worked properly. In that situation you could still use a camera to get screenshots.
It's not very difficult either:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository
Also check the relevant man pages for the commands in question, and perhaps find some other online guides if required.
You can also run out of RAM with large packages even when building in an HDD located dir, the linking stage near the end often fails due to this. You should consider how much RAM you have per thread, if you are doing a default multiprocess build, because 8GB on a 16 thread CPU is less than 4GB on a twin thread CPU. You can set the number of parallel build jobs in various ways, e.g. in the PKGBUILD or makepkg config to reduce RAM requirements though.

I will keep that in mind. It's just like I did with yay, I assume.

Using a camera, or screenshot program -- doesn't allow going back far enough to find the root error.

It's been a long time since I built anything large. Used to build kernels all the time. Actually running out of RAM/swap hadn't occurred to me, though I would hope that a fairly explicit error shows up when that happens.

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #4 –
If you can scroll back then you can photograph or video it then, or video the process as it happens. Possibly an out of RAM error would show up in syslog, so you could check there for the relevant time period, but if you are out of RAM the system ceases to function correctly so who knows. The build would quite likely just stop or fail, pretty randomly. Pamac is a simple GUI to help users with limited ability, it's not the best thing to debug failed builds and do development work, that isn't it's intention. For a solely Pamac based user, if the build fails then build something else might be the best advice!  :D (And why not, that isn't intended to deride anyone.)
makepkg is the fundamental method to build AUR packages and should ideally be learnt first so you better understand the mechanics behind the scenes, before using AUR helpers, which are just wrappers around that and pacman to make it easy to keep multiple AUR packages updated together with your repo updates. If you install an AUR package with makepkg, pamac or yay should still discover it and update it as required in future.
The xfce4 terminal has a useful right click menu feature to copy the entire terminal window contents, incidentally, although you need to alter the scrollback limit from the default, you don't need to install the whole xfce4 desktop if you just wanted the terminal. Mate terminal has Edit - Select All or shift ctrl a to do the same. tee is great for logging too, good idea.

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #5 –
I wouldn't want to be a developer trying to find an error in a video of lines scrolling up the screen.  :o

I tend to be a bit leary of copy/paste for very large amounts of stuff, though I see references to sticking images in the clipboard (or paste buffer), and I've even done that a couple times, but not for huge files. I've gotten warnings from yakuake - a popup asking if I really want to paste N lines, but never a failure. So, it'll stay a mystery as to why pamac hung, and why the paste buffer was empty.

I'll have to try some things out later. For now, I'm just pushing ahead with getting this system up to where I'm ready to live in it. Very close now. :)

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #7 –
It is an unspeakable sin to use a graphical package manager as artix user.  :o

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #11 –
Quote from: artoo – on
Then its time you learn something and build your package with makepkg. :)
And if you can handle that, you'll be ready for Gentoo, and then LFS. :P
Quote from: artoo – on
Don't use pamac for building.
I don't intend to do it again, but in the meantime, I've been surprised by it as well. Like when I queued up k3b and kid3-qt, and ended up building Python2.  Yeah, I'm doing things in a hurry at the moment. Well, I'll get used to it.

I suppose I shouldn't be too concerned about Py2, since it looks as if I'm going to build a couple GTK2 things as well. And having Py2 around means I might be able to Pyrite working.
Quote from: n00b – on
with octopi I can run yay in terminal and copy the output.
I already tried octopi, and didn't like it. But maybe that's a reason to give it another shot.
 

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #13 –
Python 2 is in the Universe repo as well as the AUR, you didn't need to build it youself and an AUR helper shouldn't have done so either:
universe/python2 2.7.18-9
aur/python2 2.7.18-11 [75 / 0.976671]

The easy route is to learn to walk before you run, ie learn to use the simple basic makepkg before you get into complex AUR helpers that obscure the processes involved. Sure they make it quick to update your system all at once, but when things start going wrong, it's much easier to do things in simple steps, rather than it being automated and then auto deleted before you can figure out what happened. (And all AUR helpers directly use makepkg itself, the only thing you need to do is run the few basic commands manually to carry out the exact same process.)

Re: How to save pamac output from failed build

Reply #14 –
I'm certainly learning!  :D