Hi Gary,
Have you tried building an existing package in the archive (e.g using --check),
so that would remove the chance that it's something with the package definition?
If it's a general problem with 'guix build' do you also have a problem with
'guix shell'. The main difference in the install now is that it's done without
root permissions, I had some problems getting this right on an existing install.
Steve / Futurile
On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 09:10:02PM +0700, Gary Johnson wrote:
> Hi Guix,
>
> I recently installed Guix onto a new Ubuntu VM using the standard
> guix-install.sh script. Now on this VM, I cannot successfully build packages
> that do build correctly on my own machine.
>
> While one might expect that I am just running different versions of Guix on
> each machine, this shouldn't be the case because I am using the same
> channels.scm file on both computers via the `guix time-machine` command. I've
> never seen different behavior between two machines running the same Guix
> version and building the same packages before, so I am utterly mystified.
>
> Here's the error I get on my new VM when building a package:
>
> ===========================================================================
>
> starting phase `install-license-files'
> error: in phase 'install-license-files': uncaught exception:
> match-error "match" "no matching pattern" #f
> phase `install-license-files' failed after 0.0 seconds
> Backtrace:
> 9 (primitive-load "/gnu/store/mbyp0pi1lbcqzw22mv0bjpabqis…")
> In guix/build/gnu-build-system.scm:
> 972:2 8 (gnu-build #:source _ #:outputs _ #:inputs _ #:phases . #)
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
> 1752:10 7 (with-exception-handler _ _ #:unwind? _ # _)
> In srfi/srfi-1.scm:
> 634:9 6 (for-each #<procedure 71ac5e089d40 at guix/build/gnu-b…> …)
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
> 1752:10 5 (with-exception-handler _ _ #:unwind? _ # _)
> In guix/build/gnu-build-system.scm:
> 993:23 4 (_)
> 889:7 3 (install-license-files #:outputs _ #:license-file-regexp …)
> 881:4 2 (_)
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
> 1685:16 1 (raise-exception _ #:continuable? _)
> 1685:16 0 (raise-exception _ #:continuable? _)
>
> ice-9/boot-9.scm:1685:16: In procedure raise-exception:
> Throw to key `match-error' with args `("match" "no matching pattern" #f)'.
> build process 11 exited with status 256
>
> ===========================================================================
>
> Here is one of the many offending files that are all failing for me like this:
>
> (define geoserver-css-plugin
> (package
> (name "geoserver-css-plugin")
> (version "2.19.6")
> (source (origin
> (method url-fetch)
> (uri (string-append
> "https://sourceforge.net/projects/geoserver/files/GeoServer/"; version
> "/extensions/geoserver-" version
> "-css-plugin.zip"))
> (sha256 (base32
> "06h2avzqps4dv9lwpck14v4cpk511z1mh13d3w5ii1153rcqdihb"))))
> (build-system copy-build-system)
> (arguments '(#:install-plan '(("." "./" #:exclude
> ("environment-variables")))))
> (native-inputs (list unzip))
> (home-page
> "https://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/user/styling/css/install.html";)
> (synopsis "GeoServer CSS Plugin")
> (description "The GeoServer CSS Plugin enables you to write layer styles
> using CSS instead of SLD.")
> (license gpl2)))
>
> In order to get them to build I have to modify their build phases like so:
>
> (define geoserver-css-plugin
> (package
> (name "geoserver-css-plugin")
> (version "2.19.6")
> (source (origin
> (method url-fetch)
> (uri (string-append
> "https://sourceforge.net/projects/geoserver/files/GeoServer/"; version
> "/extensions/geoserver-" version
> "-css-plugin.zip"))
> (sha256 (base32
> "06h2avzqps4dv9lwpck14v4cpk511z1mh13d3w5ii1153rcqdihb"))))
> (build-system copy-build-system)
> (arguments '(#:phases (modify-phases %standard-phases
> (delete 'install-license-files))
> #:install-plan '(("." "./" #:exclude
> ("environment-variables")))))
> (native-inputs (list unzip))
> (home-page
> "https://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/user/styling/css/install.html";)
> (synopsis "GeoServer CSS Plugin")
> (description "The GeoServer CSS Plugin enables you to write layer styles
> using CSS instead of SLD.")
> (license gpl2)))
>
> Does anybody have any idea what could be going on here?
>
> Thanks,
> Gary
>
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