The following is for ArchLinux however applies to other Linux distros too. To correct an invalid KEY one needs to do the following: rm -fr /etc/pacman.d/gnupg pacman-key --init pacman-key --populate archlinux Save say the key throwing an error is in Blackarch then is also needed to : sudo pacman-key --populate blackarch Save and finally sudo pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux sudo pacman-key --refresh-keys