troubleshooting_general.md

Troubleshooting Advice for the General Registry

Scenario

You have added your own registry with e.g.

using Pkg
pkg"registry add <repository url>"

and then find that trying to add a package from the General registry fails with a message like

ERROR: The following package names could not be resolved:
 * Example (not found in project, manifest or registry)

or you try to add one of your own packages, with a dependency in General, with a result like

ERROR: cannot find name corresponding to UUID fa961155-64e5-5f13-b03f-caf6b980ea82 in a registry

Likely Cause

This can happen if you have a fresh installation of Julia (technically an empty depot) where the General registry was not already installed. You can verify whether this is the case by running

using Pkg
pkg"registry status"

If this shows a single line with your own registry, you can read on to find out what to do about it. If it does show a line

 [23338594] General

then you have the General registry installed and your problem is something different from what is discussed here.

Solution

Simply run

using Pkg
pkg"registry add General"

to add the General registry.

If this happens in the context of a Continuous Integration setup, where you typically start over repeatedly from a fresh install, you can most easily avoid the problem by doing

using Pkg
pkg"registry add General <repository url>"

to simultaneously install both the General registry and your own registry.

Further Discussion

If you have a fresh install and don't add a custom registry, you will not see this problem. The reason is that if you run a Pkg command that needs registry information but no registry is installed, it automatically installs the General registry. This does not happen if some registry, such as your own, is already installed.