[root@a2800 etc]# psu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
current [] 100% 40K 174.6K/s 00:00:00
extra [] 100% 157K 384.3K/s 00:00:00
....
:: Retrieving packages from extra...
kdeaddons-3.3.0-2 [] 100% 2473K 687.9K/s 00:00:03

actually not one progress bar seems to be working anymore, even on large packages or while synchronizing... is this supposed to happen?

No, it is not supposed to happen. And it doesn't for me. Anyone else?

[root@pluto jvinet]# pacman -S xapps

Targets: xapps-20040912-1

Total Package Size: 0.0 MB

Proceed with upgrade? [Y/n]

:: Retrieving packages from current...
xapps-20040912-1 [################] 100% 18K 220.2K/s 00:00:00

checking package integrity... done.
loading package data... done.
checking for file conflicts... done.
installing xapps... done.

hmm I can't reproduce it either, now it's working for me

(from memory, so this might not be entirely correct) what happened was:
*it asked me if I should replace quanta with kdewebdev or something alike: I said yes
*update pacman first: yes
*replace quanta with kdewebdev: yes
*download and install the following huge list?: no
*pacman -S about 10 of those packages
*pacman -S another bunch of those packages, only excluding kde packages
*maybe a pacman -Syu in the mean time, saying no if he asks to download stuff
*install that xapps program: no progress bar
*start downloading some kde programs: no progress bar

that was this afternoon

Now it's midnight, I'm using another (su'd) console and they are working perfectly now...
Must be some of those bugs you can search for hours, days or longer, only to find out that it was something really simple ;)

Maybe you happened to run pacman in a too short (small window) pseudo terminal. At least when I run it like that, progress bars also dissapear.

Nope, most definatelly not the problem: when I use a very small terminal (konsole) I get something like what you can see below... and in the examples above you can see that my window was larger than the example below so that's not it :/

Maybe this depends from console to console, but when that progress bar disappeared I was also using konsole

:: Retrieving packages from cur
rent...
automake-1.9.2-1 [
] 3% 11K
automake-1.9.2-1 [#
] 7% 22K
automake-1.9.2-1 [#
] 11% 33K
automake-1.9.2-1 [##
] 16% 49K
automake-1.9.2-1 [###
] 21% 65K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
] 25% 76K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
] 29% 87K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
# ] 33% 98K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
# ] 37% 110K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
## ] 40% 121K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
### ] 44% 132K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
### ] 48% 144K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
#### ] 52% 155K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
#### ] 55% 166K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
##### ] 59% 178K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
###### ] 63% 189K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
###### ] 67% 200K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
####### ] 71% 212K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
####### ] 74% 223K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
######## ] 78% 234K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
######### ] 82% 246K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
######### ] 86% 257K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
########## ] 90% 268K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
########## ] 93% 280K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
########### ] 97% 291K
automake-1.9.2-1 [####
############] 100% 298K 5
29.6K/s 00:00:00

The "0.0mb" thing is fixed in cvs, it'll be in 2.9.1.

I still can't reproduce the vanishing progress bar, though.