Home-manager broken after nix-channel --update run

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#1

Hello,
I’ve recently ran nix-channel --update and ended up with broken home-manager. I’m very new to nix and not sure where to look to troubleshoot the following error.

❯ home-manager switch
error: 'submoduleWith' at /nix/store/s8j80dqc1g19xqbdm5xs8473iw1jnmyc-nixpkgs/nixpkgs/lib/types.nix:570:7 called with unexpected argument 'description'

       at /Users/val123/.nix-defexpr/channels/home-manager/nixos/common.nix:14:14:

           13|
           14|   hmModule = types.submoduleWith {
             |              ^
           15|     description = "Home Manager module";
#2

This error is common for a channel mismatch between home-manager and nixpkgs.

Please make sure that you use a correct pair.

#3

do nixpkgs and home-manager channels need to match?

❯ nix-channel --list
darwin https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz
home-manager https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/master.tar.gz
nixpkgs-unstable https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
#4

What are roots channels?

You don’t have a nixpkgs, so roots nixpkgs or nixos become relevant.

#5 
root# nix-channel --list
nixpkgs https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
#6

Did you also update that one?

#7

That was it, thank you!

#8

I would recommend to also create a nixpkgs channel in your user channels. This makes things a lot easier.

#9

@Sandro I don’t understand how channels relate do each other between different users. Would I need to keep the root user’s channel around? Or as long as nixpkgs channel is defined for my user the root’s channel won’t be looked up?

#10

If you are trying to use a channel which does not exist under the user nix looks at the root user channels. If the channel exists there then that one will be used.

Yes, I think it is used by nix update-nix.

yes

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