Package install fails after fresh install of nix on debian bullseye

Help
1

Installed nix using: curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install which installs channel 2.11.1. I have a bash script that installs 335 packages using nix-env -iA “nixpkgs.$pkgname”. All packages install as expected except those that start with the letter ‘d’!! The packages are:
dash dateutils ddgr debootstrap dialog diffr dig dmidecode dmenu
dolphin dub dutree dzen2. Now the bizarre thing is that is not any specific
package taht fails. If I install them one by one randomly with nix-env -iA “nixpkgs.$pkgname”
one of them will err after for or five of them install ok. It is a different one each time but it always happens.

Here is an example:
installing ‘dmidecode-3.4’
this path will be fetched (0.06 MiB download, 0.20 MiB unpacked):
/nix/store/3vx4jfl7zn2l92mn4zrn2pb2nx5hk9s6-dmidecode-3.4
copying path ‘/nix/store/3vx4jfl7zn2l92mn4zrn2pb2nx5hk9s6-dmidecode-3.4’ from ‘https://cache.nixos.org’…
error: this derivation has bad ‘meta.outputsToInstall’

After this the store is corrupted and nothing can be installed or uninstalled.

Very weird!

Thanks in advance

Murray

2

Seems related to this (really weird that it only fails with packages starting with d ^^) Cannot install packages in user environment anymore on NixOS (22.05) `error: this derivation has bad 'meta.outputsToInstall' ` · Issue #189555 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub It was apparently solved running nix-env -u --always (that can force packages to downgrade)

3

Thanks for the reply. Did not seem to fix it.

  1. nix install using: curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install
  2. nix-env -u --always gives:
    upgrading ‘nss-cacert-3.80’ to ‘nss-cacert-3.83’
    downgrading ‘nix-2.11.1’ to ‘nix-2.11.0’
  3. installs still fail at dmidecode (nix-env -iA nixpkg.$name)
    dash - ok
    dateutils - ok
    ddgr -ok
    debootstrap -ok
    dialog -ok
    diffr -ok
    dig -ok
    dmidecode gives
    error: this derivation has bad ‘meta.outputsToInstall’

If I’m doing it right.

Murr