Bugzilla Bug 106648

this was working with previous version of portage ...

root@vapier 0 ~ # emerge metadata
skipping sync

>>> Updating Portage cache:   17%Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 2731, in ?
    cleanse_cache(pdb, oldcat, savelist)
  File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 2706, in cleanse_cache
    for pv in pdb.auxdb[porttree_root][cat].keys():
KeyError: 'cross-arm-gentoo-linux-uclibc'

root@vapier 0 ~ # grep cross-arm-gentoo-linux-uclibc /etc/portage/categories
cross-arm-gentoo-linux-uclibc

root@vapier 0 ~ # ls /usr/local/portage/cross-arm-gentoo-linux-uclibc
binutils  gcc  linux-headers  uclibc

root@vapier 0 ~ # portageq envvar PORTDIR_OVERLAY
/usr/local/portage

I can confirm this Bug. PORTDIR_OVERLAY pointing to an overlay containing
cross-compiler ebuilds breaks emerge --{sync,metadata} :-/

phi dvandyk # emerge --metadata
skipping sync

>>> Updating Portage cache:   17%Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 2731, in ?
    cleanse_cache(pdb, oldcat, savelist)
  File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 2706, in cleanse_cache
    for pv in pdb.auxdb[porttree_root][cat].keys():
KeyError: 'cross-powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu'

phi dvandyk # emerge info
Portage 2.0.52-r1 (default-linux/amd64/2005.1, gcc-3.4.3-20050110,
glibc-2.3.5-r0, 2.6.12-gentoo-r5 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.12-gentoo-r5 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.12
distcc 2.18.3 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.2.3-r5, 2.3.5, 2.4.1-r1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.12
[snip]
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig buildsyspkg cvs distlocks sandbox sfperms sign strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/download/gentoo-mirror/
ftp://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/gentoo-mirror/"
LINGUAS="de"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://sigma/gentoo-portage"

Fixed in portage-2.0.53_rc3 

Forgot to mark.