Scenario: you have multiple versions of same package emerge-d the newer version gets masked emerge -s <package> shows: Latest Version Available: <old version> Latest Version Installed: <new version> Example: In my case, i emerge-d gnome-extra/gnome-games version 1.4.0.3-r3 and 1.94.0 all versions of gnome-games above 1.4.0.3-r3 got masked ... now my emerge -s shows Latest Version Available: 1.4.0.3-r3 Latest Version Installed: 1.94.0 Note: `emerge world -up` does not list this package as needing an update Suggested Fix: display something like Latest Version Available: 1.4.0.3-r3 Latest Version Installed: 1.94.0 [currently masked] k thx dad
*** Bug 6605 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Text from 6605 (same reason, but affects cleaning versions, not showing versions): I just emerged cdrtools 1.11.29, had 1.11.28 before. Everything went fine. Then I tried emerge --pretend clean, and for cdrtools, it says: selected: 1.11.29 protected: 1.11.28 (so it wants to delete the new version and keep the old one!) prune instead of clean does the same. I grepped the portage trees for dependencies on 1.11.28, but as far as I can tell, there are none. It turned out the 1.11.29 was masked in the meantime. Even then, it should *not* be cleaned! This would damage the system: 1.11.29 overwrites most of 1.11.28, and after cleaning 1.11.29, a partially-installed, damaged 1.11.28 remains, leaving the package in a non-functional state!
it affects everything ;) not just clean/search ... but also emerg-ing/pruning
*** Bug 4978 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
emerge search (in portage 2.0.34) obeys masking information so it should show consistent results.