I believe for package definitions * known triggers for unhelpful error messages should get more graceful error messages,
* there should be no fixed truncation of error messages and * there could perhaps be more tooling like single-stepping through the build process. For example in <https://issues.guix.info/issue/35640> I got an unhelpful error message: [ 11%] LOAD guix/scripts/search.scm [ 11%] LOAD guix/scripts/gc.scm [ 11%] LOAD guix/scripts/hash.scm [ 11%] LOAD guix/scripts/pack.scm Backtrace: In ice-9/boot-9.scm: 222:29 19 (map1 (((guix utils)) ((guix store)) ((guix #) # (#)) …)) 222:29 18 (map1 (((guix store)) ((guix status) #:select (#)) (#) …)) 222:29 17 (map1 (((guix status) #:select (#)) ((guix grafts)) # …)) 222:29 16 (map1 (((guix grafts)) ((guix monads)) ((guix #)) (#) …)) 222:29 15 (map1 (((guix monads)) ((guix modules)) ((guix #)) (#) …)) 222:29 14 (map1 (((guix modules)) ((guix packages)) ((guix #)) # …)) 222:29 13 (map1 (((guix packages)) ((guix profiles)) ((guix #)) …)) 222:29 12 (map1 (((guix profiles)) ((guix describe)) ((guix #)) …)) 222:29 11 (map1 (((guix describe)) ((guix derivations)) ((# #)) …)) 222:29 10 (map1 (((guix derivations)) ((guix search-paths)) (#) …)) 222:29 9 (map1 (((guix search-paths)) ((guix build-system #)) # …)) 222:29 8 (map1 (((guix build-system gnu)) ((guix scripts #)) # …)) 222:29 7 (map1 (((guix scripts build)) ((guix self) #:select …) …)) 222:29 6 (map1 (((guix self) #:select (make-config.scm)) ((…)) …)) 222:29 5 (map1 (((gnu packages)) ((gnu packages bootstrap)) (…) …)) 222:29 4 (map1 (((gnu packages bootstrap)) ((gnu packages …) …) …)) 222:17 3 (map1 (((gnu packages compression) #:hide (zip)) ((…)) …)) 2830:10 2 (resolve-interface (gnu packages compression) #:select _ …) 260:13 1 (for-each #<procedure 52470e0 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:2830…> …) In unknown file: 0 (scm-error misc-error #f "~A" ("no binding `zip' to h…") …) ERROR: In procedure scm-error: no binding `zip' to hide in module (gnu packages compression) I wished it had been possible to step (or reverse-step) through the build process like in gdb for C programs, but I presume this might be too difficult to realize for now (?). Then the following was a non-obvious error I got when building an earlier revision of usb-modeswitch-data because I used #:modules (… (guix packages)) in the arguments to the trivial-build-system of usb-modeswitch-data. florian@florianmacbook ~/git/guix [env]$ bzcat /var/log/guix/drvs/pz/z8vjc5ba6slfry3jipczlvv84ww5j3-module-import-compiled.drv.bz2 Backtrace: In system/base/compile.scm: 152:6 19 (compile-file "/gnu/store/6mww1gn4l70m4j4psj5966w0jdsi?" ?) 43:4 18 (call-once _) In ice-9/boot-9.scm: 841:4 17 (with-throw-handler _ _ _) In system/base/compile.scm: 59:11 16 (_) 155:11 15 (_ #<closed: file 8dc5b0>) 235:18 14 (read-and-compile #<input: /gnu/store/6mww1gn4l70m4j4p?> ?) 183:32 13 (compile-fold (#<procedure compile-tree-il (x e opts)>) ?) In ice-9/boot-9.scm: 2312:4 12 (save-module-excursion #<procedure a16c00 at language/s?>) In language/scheme/compile-tree-il.scm: 31:15 11 (_) In ice-9/psyntax.scm: 1235:36 10 (expand-top-sequence ((define-module (guix #) # (?) ?)) ?) 1182:24 9 (parse _ (("placeholder" placeholder)) ((top) #(# # ?)) ?) 285:10 8 (parse _ (("placeholder" placeholder)) (()) _ c&e (# #) #) In ice-9/eval.scm: 293:34 7 (_ #<module (#{ g3136}#) 8f78c0>) In ice-9/boot-9.scm: 2874:4 6 (define-module* _ #:filename _ #:pure _ #:version _ # _ ?) 2071:24 5 (call-with-deferred-observers #<procedure 12a0aa0 at ic?>) 2887:24 4 (_) 222:17 3 (map1 (((guix utils)) ((guix records)) ((guix store)) ?)) 2803:6 2 (resolve-interface _ #:select _ #:hide _ #:prefix _ # _ ?) In unknown file: 1 (scm-error misc-error #f "~A ~S" ("no code for modu?" ?) ?) In ice-9/boot-9.scm: 752:25 0 (dispatch-exception _ _ _) ice-9/boot-9.scm:752:25: In procedure dispatch-exception: no code for module (guix utils) When I did `./pre-inst-env guix lint usb-modeswitch-data`, it did not find the error either. Regards, Florian