I guess that’s a bit better than the original command in question. But from what I understand it’s still unnecessary and there is simply no need to force the refresh. A regular pacman -Syu is all you need and will refresh all databases that need it.

You could install the linux-lts kernel alongside the one you have already installed to have the option to just boot into that one when a kernel update seems to be the problem.

Another thing would be to look into backup solutions that execute automatically when updating your system. Personally I have my system on BTRFS subvolumes and a package called snapper to manage the snapshots (backups). Alternatively the package timeshift gets mentioned a lot when discussing backup solutions.

Otherwise you did exactly what I have done to fix almost every issue I ever had. Downgrading the likely culprit and updating again a bit later.

Very basic, but incredibly useful. Love it.

From what I understand everybody will have to buy it. Of course it’s nice to get things for free (especially if they previously stated it would be). But if it’s good DLC rich of content I don’t mind paying. It was the same for me with the two expansion sized DLCs in the Witcher 3.