Emacs-python-mode "marked as broken", can't rebuild NixOS config

1

MELPA’s ‘python-mode’ has been part of my config for over a year. Recently I became unable to run nixos-rebuild. The process fails as follows:

[jeff@jbb-dell:~/nix/jbb-config]$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch
[sudo] password for jeff:
unpacking 'https://github.com/nix-community/emacs-overlay/archive/master.tar.gz'...
building Nix...
building the system configuration...
error: Package ‘emacs-python-mode-20210408.800’ in /nix/store/kjrl5mryx1z9nmgsznn5b7wgpgrnq7s9-nixos-20.09.3925.63adedf6319/nixos/pkgs/applications/editors/emacs-modes/libgenerated.nix:72 is marked as broken, refusing to evaluate.

a) For `nixos-rebuild` you can set
  { nixpkgs.config.allowBroken = true; }
in configuration.nix to override this.

b) For `nix-env`, `nix-build`, `nix-shell` or any other Nix command you can add
  { allowBroken = true; }
to ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix.

(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

[jeff@jbb-dell:~/nix/jbb-config]$

I can’t imagine I’m the only Emacs & Python user who’s needed to rebuild their system since it broke a few weeks ago. What is the appropriate response? Should I use some other package? Where is the reason for a package being marked as broken usually documented?

2

Melpa packages are generated dynamically, the ‘broken’ flag comes from that generation process.

Looks like at the time that the melpa packages was generated gitlab returned a 503 for the python-mode repo.

from: (warning, big text file) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/master/pkgs/applications/editors/emacs-modes/recipes-archive-melpa.json

{
  "ename": "python-mode",
  "commit": "82861e1ab114451af5e1106d53195afd3605448a",
  "sha256": "1m7c6c97xpr5mrbyzhcl2cy7ykdz5yjj90mrakd4lknnsbcq205k",
  "fetcher": "gitlab",
  "repo": "python-mode-devs/python-mode",
  "unstable": {
   "version": [
    20210408,
    800
   ],
   "commit": "710ffadeb43136d400de0a4c9e4a94c8b7ff36f0",
   "error": [
    "exited abnormally with code 1\n",
    "",
    "warning: unknown setting 'experimental-features'\nwarning: unable to download 'https://gitlab.com/python-mode-devs/python-mode/repository/archive.tar.gz?ref=710ffadeb43136d400de0a4c9e4a94c8b7ff36f0': HTTP error 503; retrying in 326 ms\nwarning: unable to download 'https://gitlab.com/python-mode-devs/python-mode/repository/archive.tar.gz?ref=710ffadeb43136d400de0a4c9e4a94c8b7ff36f0': HTTP error 503; retrying in 558 ms\nwarning: unable to download 'https://gitlab.com/python-mode-devs/python-mode/repository/archive.tar.gz?ref=710ffadeb43136d400de0a4c9e4a94c8b7ff36f0': HTTP error 503; retrying in 1272 ms\nwarning: unable to download 'https://gitlab.com/python-mode-devs/python-mode/repository/archive.tar.gz?ref=710ffadeb43136d400de0a4c9e4a94c8b7ff36f0': HTTP error 503; retrying in 2702 ms\nerror: unable to download 'https://gitlab.com/python-mode-devs/python-mode/repository/archive.tar.gz?ref=710ffadeb43136d400de0a4c9e4a94c8b7ff36f0': HTTP error 503\n"
   ]
  },
  "stable": {
   "version": [
    6,
    2,
    3
   ],
   "commit": "a0a534639bc6142c2c2f44bd7ca5878ad5f79518",
   "sha256": "0sj2hfjwpcdg9djsgl3y5aa3gnvl4s87477x6a9d14m11db3p7ml"
  }
 }

I assume the fix is to regenerate melpa packages (or just the python-mode one) and submit a PR, but I’m not sure how to do that exactly.

3

I tried to use the ‘update-melpa’ script, but I got loads of 503s from various Gitlab projects as well. I wonder if this PR fixes the updater: Update emacs2nix and update-melpa.el by kennyballou · Pull Request #120354 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub

4

Since that PR was merged, I created emacs.pkgs: 2021-05-03 by mattchrist · Pull Request #121632 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub that fixes python-mode (among other updates).

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