I'm using this meta-bug to document packages that fail to build using libremakepkg, unless one specifies the -N flag.

Details could be different from one package to another. For instance, one possibility is that we are inheriting a bad choice of configure flags from Arch, or any other such scenario that would lead the build process to download external libraries, even when it's avoidable. However if that's not the case I suggest bug reports be opened upstream; we could work around it in the meantime in order to meet the Parabola packaging standards.

* kodi:
Attempts to download a copy of ffmpeg from https://github.com/xbmc/FFmpeg during build() (_See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master/tools/depends/target/ffmpeg/autobuild.sh#L114_) and fails with:
<pre>
...
| configure: "FFmpeg installation forced by user - installing our version"
| tar: ../ffmpeg-2.8.6-Jarvis-16.0.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
| tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
| /build/kodi/src/xbmc-16.1-Jarvis/tools/depends/target/ffmpeg/autobuild.sh: line 128: ./configure: No such file or directory
| make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
| ERROR: Building ffmpeg failed
| checking for FFMPEG... no
| configure: error: "ffmpeg not found"
| ==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
| Aborting...
</pre>

* icedove:
Attempts to download a Python package called @blessings@ with pip during build():
<pre>
...
| make[4]: Entering directory '/build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/mail/test/mozmill'
| ../../../config/nsinstall -t /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/mail/test/resources ../../../_tests/mozmill
| ../../../config/nsinstall -t /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/mozilla/python/virtualenv ../../../_tests/mozmill/resources/
| rm -rf ../../../_tests/mozmill/../mozmill-virtualenv && \
| mkdir ../../../_tests/mozmill/../mozmill-virtualenv && \
| unset MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET && \
| /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/_virtualenv/bin/python ../../../_tests/mozmill/resources/installmozmill.py \
| ../../../_tests/mozmill/../mozmill-virtualenv /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/mozilla/testing/mozbase
| Using real prefix '/usr'
| New python executable in /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/_tests/mozmill-virtualenv/bin/python
| Installing setuptools, pip...done.
| Processing /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/mozilla/testing/mozbase/manifestparser
...
| Processing /build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/mozilla/testing/mozbase/mozrunner
| Collecting blessings>=1.3 (from mozlog==3.1)
| Retrying (Retry(total=4, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None)) after connection broken by 'ProtocolError('Connection aborted ...
| Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement blessings>=1.3 (from mozlog==3.1)
| No distributions at all found for blessings>=1.3 (from mozlog==3.1)
| Python: 2.7.12 (default, Jun 28 2016, 08:31:05)
| [GCC 6.1.1 20160602]
| Failure to install packages
| make[4]: *** [Makefile:30: mozmill-virtualenv] Error 1
| make[4]: Leaving directory '/build/icedove/src/thunderbird-45.2.0/obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/mail/test/mozmill'
...
| ==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
| Aborting...
</pre>

* gstreamer0.10-bad: *gstreamer0.10-bad:
This one goes straight to the issue as soon as build() starts:
<pre>
| ==> Starting build()...
| + Setting up common submodule
| Submodule 'common' (git://anongit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/common) registered for path 'common'
| Cloning into '/build/gstreamer0.10-bad/src/gst-plugins-bad/common'...
| fatal: Unable to look up anongit.freedesktop.org (port 9418) (Name or service not known)
| fatal: clone of 'git://anongit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/common' into submodule path '/build/gstreamer0.10-bad/src/gst-plugins-bad/common' failed
| There is something wrong with your source tree.
| You are missing common/gst-autogen.sh
| ==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
| Aborting...
</pre>