What mirror is the system using? The output of the command
urpmq --list-url|grep 'Core Updates'
will show which one is in use.

Also, please run "urpmi --auto-update", to see if that
fixes the issue.

CC: (none) => davidwhodgins

As per an email exchange with Dennis,

When there is a large update, with lots of packages, such as kde or
gnome, sometimes a mirror will sync from it's upstream mirror, while
the upstream mirror is in the middle of syncing from it's upstream
mirror, or from the push of packages system.

The result is that updates become available to users, that either
will not install (if they're lucky), or worse, break the working
of some packages, (the case in this report), until the full update
has been synced through the various levels of mirrors, and installed
on the users system.

My understanding is that the way the hdlist files are handled, is
supposed to prevent this, but it clearly isn't working. It's rare,
but it seems that every time there is a large update, such as kde
or gnome, there are a few systems affected. We need to find some
way to prevent this from happening, as it makes Mageia look very
unprofessional, especially for the qa team.

How long does it take for the script that pushes the kde update from
updates_testing to updates, to run?

Can the build system be changed such that a push from updates_testing
to updates will stop new rsync connections from starting, wait for
existing rsync connections to finish, do the push, then allow rsync
connections to start again?  At least that way, 1st tier mirrors
would never have partially pushed updates.  That would reduce the
problem, though we still need a way to avoid the problem with 2nd
or 3rd level mirrors.  Perhaps having mgaapplet check a 1st tier
mirror for a timestamp, and not check the selected mirror for updates
if it doesn't have the same timestamp.

Opinions?

Severity: major => normal
Target Milestone: --- => Mageia 2
Product: Mageia => Infrastructure
Version: 3 => unspecified
Component: RPM Packages => BuildSystem
CC: (none) => eeeemail, sysadmin-bugs
Assignee: bugsquad => sysadmin-bugs
Summary: Icons for kwrite & kate no longer work after 01-Sep-2013 update => mgaapplet may offer to install updates, while a mirror is in the middle of syncing.

[dennis@noob ~]$ urpmq --list-url|grep 'Core Updates'
Core Updates (distrib3) rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/mirrors/mageia/distrib/3/x86_64/media/core/updates
Core Updates Debug (distrib4)
Core Updates Testing (distrib5)
Core Updates Testing Debug (distrib6)


urpmi --auto-update
shows "Packages are up to date"

I tried something else to run them from the icon:

I go to the kwrite or kate icon settings and the "Advanced Options" and enable "Run in terminal".  Now when the icon is clicked I get a "KDEInit could not launch 'konsole'" error window but a konsole does open and kwrite or kate also starts.  So I can start them from an icon but then have to close the error window and minimize the konsole to use them.

I understand that this problem may have occurred because the mirrors were syncing while I was updating but is there a fix?  Is there something I can uninstall and reinstall?

Part of this is on the mirrors and how they do their syncing, which allows getting a partially synced update.  I found this note in an e-mail from last year from jbj which might help:
"I believe if you request/require mirrors to use rsync --delete-after 
--delay-updates when they sync it will eliminate this issue since 
changes shouldn't become visible until the sync in complete.

Jeff"

Note that --delay-updates wouldn't completely solve the problem.  Doing something like rpmsync does with the --loop option where when it finishes the rsync it'll run a dryrun and if it's still not in sync will rsync again, is what would be needed to fully solve this problem.  I've actually wanted to implement something like --delay-updates so that you wouldn't have any problems while your mirror is syncing in rpmsync for several years.  It'd be nice if I'd actually get around to doing that.

(In reply to Dennis Griffin from comment #3)
> I understand that this problem may have occurred because the mirrors were
> syncing while I was updating but is there a fix?  Is there something I can
> uninstall and reinstall?

Try (as root) "rpm -e --nodeps task-kde4 && urpmi task-kde4"

Mageia 3 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status 4 months ago.
http://blog.mageia.org/en/2014/11/26/lets-say-goodbye-to-mageia-3/ 

Mageia 3 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Mageia
please feel free to click on "Version" change it against that version of Mageia
and reopen this bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

--
The Mageia Bugsquad

Resolution: (none) => OLD
Status: NEW => RESOLVED

If I understand this bug correctly, it downloaded a set of packages so the system ended up with incompatible versions, and no warning was seen?

That there is no client side check that a bunch of packages (i.e KDE suite) that need to be updated simultaneously, did not get updated all at once.

Dont we have enough dependencies set in the packages?
At least if task-plasma5 / task-plasma5-minimal is installed in this case?


As for failed sync I saw an issue that may be caused by this recently, but in my case it said something like a package did not exist.
I tried again later and it worked.

Anyway I think notning have been done to resolve the problem
 -> reopening at least for checking/discussing.

Status: RESOLVED => REOPENED
CC: (none) => fri
Resolution: OLD => (none)