suse brokenness?

[John Klos <john%ziaspace.com@localhost>]

I'm trying to build checkperms in a chroot which was used for a bulk 
build (pkgsrc-2011Q2 on macppc):

#   install 
/usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/checkperms/work.janeane/.destdir/usr/pkg/man/man1/checkperms.1
/usr/bin/install  -c  -r -o root -g wheel -m 644  checkperms.1 
/usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/checkperms/work.janeane/.destdir/usr/pkg/man/man1/checkperms.1
=> Automatic manual page handling
=> Generating post-install file lists
=> Checking file-check results for checkperms-1.11
=> Checking for non-existent script interpreters in checkperms-1.11
=> Checking for missing run-time search paths in checkperms-1.11
=> Checking for work-directory references in checkperms-1.11
===> Building binary package for checkperms-1.11
=> Creating binary package 
/usr/pkgsrc/packages/powerpc/All/checkperms-1.11.tgz
===> Install binary package of checkperms-1.11
pkg_add: /var/db/pkg/suse_base-10.0nb5/+CONTENTS: No such file or 
directory
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/checkperms
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/checkperms
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/checkperms
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/checkperms
janeane# pkg_info
digest-20080510     Message digest wrapper utility
pkg_install-20110215 Package management and administration tools for 
pkgsrc
pkg_info: cannot read meta data file +COMMENT of package 
suse_base-10.0nb5: No such file or directory


What the heck? What did suse_base do to screw up the system so badly?

John Klos