The pipeline is failing right now because RVDB is currently inaccessible ERROR ~ No such file or directory: rvdb.dbi.udel.edu/download/C-RVDBvCurrent.fasta.gz The link goes to 404 | NOT FOUND. Seems like this issue came up previously too: github.com/nf-core/viralmetagenome/issues/213 The .fasta.tar.gz link does work though rvdb.dbi.udel.edu/download/C-RVDBvCurrent.fasta.tar.gz

Ran into the same thing, was getting around it via

nextflow run nf-core/viralmetagenome -r main \
   --input samplesheet.csv \
   --outdir results_nf \
   --reference_pool "<https://rvdb.dbi.udel.edu/download/C-RVDBvCurrent.fasta.tar.gz>"

I don't think

--reference_pool

takes .fasta.tar.gz directly since there is no untarring

ERROR ~ Error executing process > 'NFCORE_VIRALMETAGENOME:VIRALMETAGENOME:BLAST_MAKEBLASTDB (reference)'

Caused by:
  Process `NFCORE_VIRALMETAGENOME:VIRALMETAGENOME:BLAST_MAKEBLASTDB (reference)` terminated with an error exit status (1)


Command executed:

  if [ "false" == "true" ]; then
      gzip -c -d reference > reference
  fi

  makeblastdb \
      -in reference \
      -out reference/reference \
      -dbtype nucl

Command exit status:
  1

Command output:


  Building a new DB, current time: 06/26/2026 15:10:30
  New DB name:   reference/reference
  New DB title:  reference
  Sequence type: Nucleotide
  Keep MBits: T
  Maximum file size: 3000000000B

Command error:
  INFO:    Environment variable SINGULARITYENV_TMPDIR is set, but APPTAINERENV_TMPDIR is preferred
  INFO:    Environment variable SINGULARITYENV_NXF_TASK_WORKDIR is set, but APPTAINERENV_NXF_TASK_WORKDIR is preferred
  INFO:    Environment variable SINGULARITYENV_NXF_DEBUG is set, but APPTAINERENV_NXF_DEBUG is preferred


  Building a new DB, current time: 06/26/2026 15:10:30
  New DB name:   reference/reference
  New DB title:  reference
  Sequence type: Nucleotide
  Keep MBits: T
  Maximum file size: 3000000000B
  BLAST options error: File reference does not exist

Thanks for reporting this, the module

BLAST_MAKEBLASTDB

does take the decompressed fasta file, viralmetagenome automatically detects how it should unpack the databases with github.com/nf-core/viralmetagenome/blob/…/main.nf. the github.com/nf-core/viralmetagenome/issues/213 was due to a power outage.