core-updates failures with ‘pre-inst-env’

[Brian Cully]

Yesterday, I managed to complete a system reconfigure and 
rebooted. Most things seem to be working fine; there's an issue 
with ‘alacritty’ presumably due to a change in wlr, but I have a 
work-around for that (the workaround is Emacs). I'm also getting 
warnings about locales from Guile:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
~/src/guix-core-updates $ herd status
guile: warning: failed to install locale
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Seems harmless so far, but I am American, so the defaults always 
work for me anyway.

More troublesome is that, while I can use the system Guix just 
fine, I can no longer use a dev Guix with ‘pre-inst-env’:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
~/src/guix-core-updates $ guix build hello
substitute: updating substitutes from 
'https://ci.guix.gnu.org'... 100.0%
0.1 MB will be downloaded:
 /gnu/store/s5pd3rnzymliafb4la5sca63j86xs0y0-hello-2.12.1
substituting 
/gnu/store/s5pd3rnzymliafb4la5sca63j86xs0y0-hello-2.12.1...
downloading from 
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/s5pd3rnzymliafb4la5sca63j86xs0y0-hello-2.12.1 
...
hello-2.12.1  59KiB 
439KiB/s 00:00 ▕██████████████████▏ 100.0%

/gnu/store/s5pd3rnzymliafb4la5sca63j86xs0y0-hello-2.12.1
~/src/guix-core-updates $ ./pre-inst-env -- guix build hello
hint: Consider installing the `glibc-locales' package and defining 
`GUIX_LOCPATH', along these lines:

    guix install glibc-locales
    export GUIX_LOCPATH="$HOME/.guix-profile/lib/locale"

See the "Application Setup" section in the manual, for more info.

guix build: error: gcry_md_hash_buffer: Function not implemented
~/src/guix-core-updates $ herd status
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Again there's an issue with locales for some reason, but the 
bigger problem is the “Function not implemented”, which breaks 
everything. It's not always ‘gcry_md_hash_buffer’, if I try to use 
my dev Guix with ‘home build’, this happens instead:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
~/src/guix-core-updates $ ./pre-inst-env -- guix home build 
~/guix-home/config.scm 
hint: Consider installing the `glibc-locales' package and defining 
`GUIX_LOCPATH', along these lines:

    guix install glibc-locales
    export GUIX_LOCPATH="$HOME/.guix-profile/lib/locale"

See the "Application Setup" section in the manual, for more info.

Backtrace:
In ice-9/threads.scm:
   390:8 19 (_ _)
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 3253:13 18 (_)
In ice-9/threads.scm:
   390:8 17 (_ _)
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 3544:20 16 (_)
  2836:4 15 (save-module-excursion #<procedure 7fa0b4eb85d0 at 
  ice-9/boot-9.scm:3545:21 ()>)
 3564:26 14 (_)
In unknown file:
         13 (primitive-load-path "guix/channels" #<procedure 
         7fa0b4f47380 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:3551:37 ()>)
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 3923:23 12 (_)
  3411:4 11 (define-module* _ #:filename _ #:pure _ #:version _ 
  #:imports _ #:exports _ #:replacements _ #:re-exports _ # _ # _ 
  # _ ?)
 3424:24 10 (_)
  222:17  9 (map1 (((git)) ((guix git)) ((guix git-authenticate)) 
  ((guix openpgp) #:select (openpgp-public-key-fingerprint #)) # 
  ?))
 3327:17  8 (resolve-interface (git) #:select _ #:hide _ #:prefix 
 _ #:renamer _ #:version _)
In ice-9/threads.scm:
   390:8  7 (_ _)
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 3253:13  6 (_)
In ice-9/threads.scm:
   390:8  5 (_ _)
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 3544:20  4 (_)
  2836:4  3 (save-module-excursion #<procedure 7fa0b4eb8510 at 
  ice-9/boot-9.scm:3545:21 ()>)
 3564:26  2 (_)
In unknown file:
          1 (primitive-load-path "git" #<procedure 7fa0b4f97ea0 
          at ice-9/boot-9.scm:3551:37 ()>)
In git/bindings.scm:
    66:8  0 (_ . _)

git/bindings.scm:66:8: In procedure git_libgit2_init: Function not 
implemented
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I assume the difference in which function is found to not be 
implemented comes from whether or not I've already downloaded a 
substitute or whether I have to build it from fresh, but the 
actual problem is somewhere in the C bindings.

But why does this only happen when I try to use ‘pre-inst-env’? I 
have already done a complete bootstrap -> configure -> make clean 
-> make cycle, and the errors persist.

Any ideas?

-bjc