cpan.org Metadata and modules files not being updated
[email protected] (James E Keenan) Sat, 21 Mar 2026 09:31:44 -0400
| Newsgroups | perl.cpan.workers |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Having a problem which first becomes apparent running the 'cpan' shell, but then points toward the cpan.org infrastructure. Yesterday I installed perl-5.43.9 on by two servers (Linux and FreeBSD). Here I present data from FreeBSD: ``` [perlmonger: perl-5.43.9] $ ls -l bin/perl bin/cpan -rwxr-xr-x 1 jkeenan jkeenan 8418 Mar 20 14:56 bin/cpan -rwxr-xr-x 2 jkeenan jkeenan 4080848 Mar 20 14:56 bin/perl $ ./bin/perl -v | head -2 | tail -1 This is perl 5, version 43, subversion 9 (v5.43.9) built for amd64-freebsd-thread-multi $ ./bin/cpan -v ./bin/cpan script version 1.678, CPAN.pm version 2.38 ``` I then installed Task::CPAN::Reporter against that perl (including a trial release of Net-SSLeay-1.95_001) and then proceeded to generate CPANtester reports for over 500 distros on each platform. I subsequently received email indicating that some of the problems I reported had already been fixed. I went back to those new perl installations and tried to use the `cpan` shell to install the updated distros. ``` $ cd $TESTINGDIR/perl-5.43.9 $ ./bin/cpan cpan[1]> reload index Reading '/home/jkeenan/.cpan/Metadata' Database was generated on Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:41:01 GMT Fetching with HTTP::Tiny: https://cpan.org/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz Reading '/home/jkeenan/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz' ............................................................................DONE Fetching with HTTP::Tiny: https://cpan.org/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz Reading '/home/jkeenan/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz' Database was generated on Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:41:01 GMT Warning: This index file is 39 days old. Please check the host you chose as your CPAN mirror for staleness. I'll continue but problems seem likely to happen. ............................................................................DONE Fetching with HTTP::Tiny: https://cpan.org/modules/03modlist.data.gz Reading '/home/jkeenan/.cpan/sources/modules/03modlist.data.gz' DONE Writing /home/jkeenan/.cpan/Metadata ``` Note these two lines in the output above: ``` Database was generated on Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:41:01 GMT Database was generated on Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:41:01 GMT Warning: This index file is 39 days old. Please check the host you chose as your CPAN mirror for staleness. I'll continue but problems seem likely to happen. ``` I get a console beep when that line `Warning: Ths index file is 39 days old.` appears. Today, 21 Mar 2026, is 40 days after 09 Feb 2026. Now my *local* CPAN metadata files are up-to-date: ``` $ ls -l ~/.cpan/Metadata ~/.cpan/sources/modules ~/.cpan/sources/authors / -rw-r--r-- 1 jkeenan jkeenan 44358810 Mar 21 13:05 /home/jkeenan/.cpan/Metadata /home/jkeenan/.cpan/sources/authors/: total 273 -rw-r--r-- 1 jkeenan jkeenan 250949 Mar 21 13:05 01mailrc.txt.gz drwxr-xr-x 28 jkeenan jkeenan 28 May 20 2021 id /home/jkeenan/.cpan/sources/modules: total 2549 -rw-r--r-- 1 jkeenan jkeenan 2592931 Mar 21 13:05 02packages.details.txt.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 jkeenan jkeenan 248 Mar 21 13:05 03modlist.data.gz ``` So what it appears is happening is that the files on cpan.org are out-of-date: ``` https://cpan.org/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz https://cpan.org/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz ``` The problem appears to be that **inside** the local `02packages.details.txt.gz` file, the `Last-Updated` entry is still 09 Feb 2026. ``` $ zcat ~/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz | head File: 02packages.details.txt URL: http://www.cpan.org/modules/02packages.details.txt Description: Package names found in directory $CPAN/authors/id/ Columns: package name, version, path Intended-For: Automated fetch routines, namespace documentation. Written-By: PAUSE version 1.005 Line-Count: 270470 Last-Updated: Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:41:01 GMT A1z::Html 0.04 C/CE/CEEJAY/A1z-Html-0.04.tar.gz ``` So every time I say `reload index` inside the `cpan` shell, I'm getting the same 40-day-old data every time. I note, for instance, that in 02packages I don't see the latest version of a CPAN distro which I uploaded on 03 March. ``` $ zgrep -n 'Business::Tax::US' ~/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.detail s.txt.gz 30869:Business::Tax::US::Form_1040::Worksheets 0.07 J/JK/JKEENAN/Business-Tax-US-Form_1040-Worksheets-0.07.tar.gz ``` ... whereas metacpan.org correctly has version 0.08 uploaded on March 3. ``` https://metacpan.org/pod/Business::Tax::US::Form_1040::Worksheets ``` Where should this be further reported?