Home-manager: error: attribute 'formats' missing

[footearth]

https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/blob/a6a3abb295777b1d3ac1ca7f2d47bd0daf7f9638/modules/programs/pet.nix#L9

error: attribute 'formats' missing, at /nix/store/aikfplfczzsw1p7dv6h33f2s4w28139n-home-manager/home-manager/modules/programs/pet.nix:9:12
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

[onny]

Seems this got introduced with the pet module. It is also failing for me

[lnlsn]

Here too.

[anilanar]

Happens to me too, because I was cheating:

I'm on nixos 20.09 but using master version of home-manager channel, which I'm not supposed to do but it worked, until this pkgs.formats.toml.

Edit: Oh maybe that's not the reason.

[rycee]

If you get this error then you most likely using Home Manager master with Nixpkgs/NixOS 20.03. The pkgs.formats.toml function should be available in Nixpkgs 20.09 and master.

@anilanar You should not get this error with Nixpkgs 20.09, perhaps you are actually building your HM configuration with Nixpkgs 20.03?

[lnlsn]

My bad!

Fixed by using Home Manager with 20.03.

Thank you.

[anilanar]

@rycee Nah, I mistyped the version. I'm on NixOS 20.03, thanks for clarification.

[rtimush]

I have the same problem on MacOS with nixpkgs-unstable (with home-manager loaded as a nix-darwin module)

[d1egoaz]

confirmed, using home-manager 20.03 worked for me

nix-channel --remove home-manager
nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/release-20.03.tar.gz home-manager
nix-channel --update
home-manager switch                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

[billop]

Ran into this issue while using flakes. I switched to the master branch because of the deprecation warning for bqv-flakes not realizing it wasn't compatible with 20.03.

[ejpcmac]

I’ve just run in this issue while trying to build a configuration using a NixOS 20.09 mirror with home-manager 20.09:

[jpc@helios]:/config/home-manager % sudo nix-channel --list
mirror file:///data/Mirroirs/nixpkgs/channel
nixos https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-20.03
nixpkgs-jpc https://github.com/ejpcmac/nixpkgs-jpc/archive/master.tar.gz
nixpkgs-mozilla https://github.com/mozilla/nixpkgs-mozilla/archive/master.tar.gz
[jpc@helios]:/config/home-manager % nix eval mirror.lib.version
"20.09.1500.edb26126d98"
[jpc@helios]:/config/home-manager % git rev-parse HEAD
abaebf3b346c4bef500c5bd2fdebbed109261a0c
[jpc@helios]:/config/home-manager % cd ../Nix/saturne
[jpc@helios]:/config/Nix/saturne % nix build -f '<mirror/nixos>' system --arg configuration ./configuration.nix
error: attribute 'formats' missing, at /config/home-manager/modules/programs/pet.nix:9:12
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

The machine on which I’m running this is still on NixOS 20.03, but as I use another channel to build the configuration, it should work, isn’t it?

[rycee]

@ejpcmac, most likely your <nixpkgs> is still pointing to Nixpkgs 20.03.

I'll close this issue since it is not an actual issue.

[korayal]

@rycee I'm not on NixOS (using home-manager on Ubuntu) and also not very experienced on Nix environments, but when I run the command below I see that my nixpkgs is not 20.03:

> nix-instantiate --eval -E '(import <nixpkgs> {}).lib.version'
"20.09pre226586.571212eb839"

And when I switch to 20.09 for home manager via commands below, it fails:

> nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/release-20.09.tar.gz home-manager
> nix-shell '<home-manager>' -A install
these derivations will be built:
  /nix/store/mdw4s2nzcghzr17j8j0fqignwk97aa8f-home-manager.drv
building '/nix/store/mdw4s2nzcghzr17j8j0fqignwk97aa8f-home-manager.drv'...
install: creating directory '/nix/store/vg7nzh5540v25yvwnxi22cirsj89gg45-home-manager'
install: creating directory '/nix/store/vg7nzh5540v25yvwnxi22cirsj89gg45-home-manager/bin'
'/nix/store/cz8nfln7qw4y3v60pnbi37n5hrq44dxl-home-manager' -> '/nix/store/vg7nzh5540v25yvwnxi22cirsj89gg45-home-manager/bin/home-manager'

Creating initial Home Manager generation...

error: attribute 'formats' missing, at /nix/store/21zjzlk4f295f5lhdg46ikakk07mwj1q-home-manager-20.09/home-manager/modules/programs/pet.nix:9:12
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

There are 6 unread and relevant news items.
Read them by running the command 'home-manager news'.

Uh oh, the installation failed! Please create an issue at

    https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/issues

if the error seems to be the fault of Home Manager.

Is there somewhere else that I should look into for nixpkgs?

[rycee]

@korayal https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/571212eb839d482992adb05479b86eeb6a9c7b2f is from May 22 and the formats code was added on July 29. You will have to update your Nixpkgs channel to a non-pre version of 20.09.

[korayal]

looks like for some reason I had my ~/.nix-defexpr/channels_root chowned by root, and even though I had nixpkgs-unstable in my nix-channel --list, that specific channel_root was pointing to the pre version of 20.09, and was overriding the unstable version.

[softinio]

I am trying to upgrade to 20.09 so have my channel lists set as:

λ nix-channel --list
home-manager https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/release-20.09.tar.gz
nixpkgs-20.09-darwin https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-20.09-darwin

and when I run home-manager switch I get the same error as being discussed here:

error: attribute 'formats' missing, at /Users/salar/.nix-defexpr/channels/home-manager/modules/programs/pet.nix:9:12
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

looking at what @korayal pointed out this what I get when i ls ~/.nix-defexpr/channels_root:

lrwxr-xr-x    60 root 31 Dec  1969  manifest.nix -> /nix/store/fm7z21j1vcgqsw5xksss8xw437jrzlfl-env-manifest.nix
lrwxr-xr-x    86 root 31 Dec  1969  nixpkgs -> /nix/store/3gd43sghpavkyvclwm9mz5bp7qz48f52-nixpkgs-20.09pre229671.9d0c3ffe678/nixpkgs

if I do ls /Users/salar/.nix-defexpr/channels:

lrwxr-xr-x    75 root 31 Dec  1969  home-manager -> /nix/store/isfyjpskyz19sb5a4apy4wmvqg92pjkl-home-manager-20.09/home-manager
lrwxr-xr-x    60 root 31 Dec  1969  manifest.nix -> /nix/store/wzixy09p0h6hymi7a7q6nrpbrbl2y9rq-env-manifest.nix
lrwxr-xr-x   112 root 31 Dec  1969  nixpkgs-20.09-darwin -> /nix/store/gb0va8lp1h9qasn6yxd6vbplh3dynsld-nixpkgs-20.09-darwin-20.09pre244447.7bcc7b6cd82/nixpkgs-20.09-darwin

any thoughts on how I fix my issue Also whats with the 1969 date :-) assume thats the modified year

[softinio]

Fixed my issues by doing the following steps:

• rm -fr ~/.nix-defexpr/channels_root/nixpkgs
• nix-channel --remove nixpkgs-20.09-darwin
• nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-20.09-darwin nixpkgs
• nix-channel --update
• home-manager switch