Gibberish nix channel being added to my list, preventing update

Help
1

After attempting to update my system today (unstable channel) and failing due to package build failure and daemon start failure, every time I run nixos-rebuild switch as root, I get a new nix channel added with a gibberish name and no link.

nix-channel --list 
"s "s
nixos "https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable

"s "s is the weird channel in question. After that, nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade does not work because of it, throwing this error:

error: reading symbolic link '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/"s': No such file or directory

I attempt to remove it with nix-channel --remove "\"s \"s", but it throws the error:

warning: selector '"s "s' matched no installed derivations
2

I also just noticed the link of the nixos channel is also wrong, starting with a "

I removed the nixos channel and added it again, now it’s correct and the gibberish channel is also gone. I ran nix-channel --update and everything seemed to be fine, but the same issue happened again by itself:

" "
nixos "https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable

Even after fixing the nixos channel link, the gibberish channel is still there. I cannot update my channels or my system.

3

When I attempt nixos-rebuild switch as root:

warning: Nix search path entry '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos' does not exist, ignoring
error:
       … <borked>

         at «none»:0: (source not available)

       … while calling the 'import' builtin

         at «string»:1:6:

            1| with import <nixpkgs/nixos> {}; config.system.build.nixos-rebuild
             |      ^

       (stack trace truncated; use '--show-trace' to show the full trace)

       error: file 'nixpkgs/nixos' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «none»:0: (source not available)
building Nix...
warning: Nix search path entry '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos' does not exist, ignoring
error: file 'nixpkgs/nixos' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «none»:0: (source not available)
warning: Nix search path entry '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos' does not exist, ignoring
error: file 'nixpkgs' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «none»:0: (source not available)
warning: Nix search path entry '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos' does not exist, ignoring
error: file 'nixpkgs/nixos/modules/installer/tools/nix-fallback-paths.nix' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «none»:0: (source not available)
/tmp/nixos-rebuild.LGqjqm/nix
warning: Nix search path entry '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos' does not exist, ignoring
error: file 'nixpkgs' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «none»:0: (source not available)
building the system configuration...
warning: Nix search path entry '/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos' does not exist, ignoring
error: file 'nixpkgs/nixos' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «none»:0: (source not available)
4
5

It seems the fix hasn’t exactly worked, and so a new pull request is open nixos/nix-channnel: fix setting up the default channel again by nikstur · Pull Request #264831 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub.

I’ll wait for it to be merged and arrive to unstable. Honestly once NixOS Tapir comes out I’ll just stick to the stable branch and only grab a small selection of packages from unstable.

6

This should be fixed now. See this tracking issue: "Invalid URL" when updating channels on current nixos-unstable · Issue #264852 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub

1 Like