Installer failed:pacstrap

R121 · May 5, 2026, 1:02am

1. Description of the Issue

Provide a brief, clear description of what went wrong and at what stage of the process.

Installer ran for about 30 minutes then said “failed to install:failed to run pacstrap”, log mostly said working in background for the most of it every minute.

2. Installation Media Creation

How did you create the USB/bootable media? (e.g., Ventoy, Etcher, Rufus, dd command)

MX live usb creator

3. Selected Installer Options

Please list the specific choices you made during the Calamares setup:

Install Method: Online
Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma
Bootloader: GRUB
Filesystem: Btrfs / Wipe Disk
Other: Nvidia drivers loaded on live usb

4. System Logs (Required)

Please provide the URL generated by the EndeavourOS log tool or paste the relevant Calamares log link below:
Log Link: https://dpaste.com/F7PDZ2FT4
**Additional Hardware Info (Optional):**RTX3060TI, i91300k

dalto · May 5, 2026, 1:16am

Looks like a network issue.

It is failing to download the packages

R121 · May 5, 2026, 1:17am

i may be stupid
offline install then?

Bink · May 5, 2026, 1:22am

[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-intel-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from ch.mirrors.cicku.me : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-intel-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from us.arch.niranjan.co : OpenSSL SSL_read: OpenSSL/3.6.2: error:0A000126:SSL routines::unexpected eof while reading, errno 0" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-intel-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from es.mirrors.cicku.me : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-nvidia-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from ch.mirrors.cicku.me : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-headers-7.0.3.arch1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst' from ch.mirrors.cicku.me : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: warning: too many errors from ch.mirrors.cicku.me, skipping for the remainder of this transaction" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-headers-7.0.3.arch1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst' from us.arch.niranjan.co : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-nvidia-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from us.arch.niranjan.co : OpenSSL SSL_read: OpenSSL/3.6.2: error:0A000126:SSL routines::unexpected eof while reading, errno 0" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: warning: too many errors from us.arch.niranjan.co, skipping for the remainder of this transaction" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-nvidia-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from es.mirrors.cicku.me : OpenSSL SSL_read: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL, errno 0" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-nvidia-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from mirror.rznet.fr : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-headers-7.0.3.arch1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.sig' from es.mirrors.cicku.me : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: warning: too many errors from es.mirrors.cicku.me, skipping for the remainder of this transaction" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-7.0.3.arch1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst' from ch.mirrors.cicku.me : HTTP/2 stream 1 reset by server (error 0x1 PROTOCOL_ERROR)" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-7.0.3.arch1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst' from mirror.rznet.fr : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-atheros-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from es.mirrors.cicku.me : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed retrieving file 'linux-firmware-atheros-20260410-1-any.pkg.tar.zst' from mirror.rznet.fr : Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 seconds" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: warning: too many errors from mirror.rznet.fr, skipping for the remainder of this transaction" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: warning: failed to retrieve some files" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: error: failed to commit transaction (failed to retrieve some files)" 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded." 
[PYTHON JOB]: "pacstrap: ==> ERROR: Failed to install packages to new root"

From within the Live ISO, are you able to access the internet using Firefox?

The errors there suggest the “operation is too slow”, but not that it’s failing completely. It’s strange, because it looks like you are cabled in too:

Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8126 5GbE vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 3
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 6000 bus-ID: 08:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8126 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp8s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Qualcomm WCN785x Wi-Fi 7 320MHz 2x2 [FastConnect 7800] vendor: Foxconn Band
    Simultaneous Wireless driver: ath12k_pci v: N/A modules: ath12k pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s
    lanes: 1 link-max: lanes: 2 bus-ID: 09:00.0 chip-ID: 17cb:1107 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>

Is your internet generally pretty reliable?

R121 · May 5, 2026, 1:22am

yeah? im typing this from the live usb on firefox right now, though my internet is not exactly known for reliability
662ms ping, 2.03mb download, 4.56mb upload

Bink · May 5, 2026, 1:27am

That’s a rather high ping!

Normally, you’d be looking at about 1/10th of that.

Just taking it back to real basics, are you able to restart your router, then try again?

R121 · May 5, 2026, 1:29am

that is, unfortunately, the best ping ive had all month

the average on our internet(hughes sattelite) is around 1200-1400

and this is after ive used a home DNS server to cut down on it and stabilize it with a network cache service, so resetting it would actually get me a higher ping at the moment

Bink · May 5, 2026, 1:30am

Ah satellite, that makes sense then. Typically higher latency is expected.

You can try the offline install. I guess my concern though, is that the issue will persist after the install, when it comes to updating.

R121 · May 5, 2026, 1:32am

thanks for taking the time to check anyway, ill have to wait until i get back into metered data limits to update, which is normal for me

Bink · May 5, 2026, 1:40am

pacman.conf does have a setting that allows you to DisableDownloadTimeout.

DisableDownloadTimeout
Disable defaults for low speed limit and timeout on downloads. Use this if you have issues downloading files with proxy and/or security gateway.

Source

I’m not exactly sure how that option is used, but from what I can gather, it looks like you present it under the [options] section in your /etc/pacman.conf file, like this:

# 
# GENERAL OPTIONS
#
[options]
DisableDownloadTimeout

You might be able to give that a try even in the Live ISO.

R121 · May 5, 2026, 1:43am

you the man, itll still take like 4 hours to install it tho i bet

Bink · May 5, 2026, 1:45am

I’m keen to know if that actually does make a difference. That’ll be useful knowledge.

If it works, you might like to update the “Solution” post.

R121 · May 5, 2026, 2:40am

i assume i have to restart the live usb to get the settings change, it didnt work

Bink · May 5, 2026, 2:56am

No I don’t think you need to restart. It would access the setting the next time pacman or pacstrap was run.

Are you able to confirm the error was the same?

R121 · May 5, 2026, 2:58am

it was the same, it also eats up nearly my entire bandwidth when it runs

Bink · May 5, 2026, 3:00am

I’m not sure if /etc/pacman.conf in the Live ISO is referenced by the installer, when installing, that’d be a question for the ISO team I suspect.

R121 · May 5, 2026, 3:01am

based on the fact the config is already reset, i dont think so

Bink · May 5, 2026, 3:01am

It’s normal that it would reset between Live ISO restarts. But did it reset within the same session?

R121 · May 5, 2026, 3:02am

no it did not, but it also seemed to have no effect

Bink · May 5, 2026, 3:25am

The other /etc/pacman.conf option that may help when working with less than ideal internet, is ParallelDownloads, which by default looks to be set to 5, but you might try setting it to 1, and work your way up:

ParallelDownloads = 1

I wonder if @joekamprad may be able to help confirm whether pacstrap in Calamares references the Live ISO’s /etc/pacman.conf?