Can't downgrade systemd using pacman -U

[WarheadsSE]

ArchiMark, what is the kernel version on that device?

[ArchiMark]

Thank you, moonman, for all your help. This is very useful info!

[vacant]

You don't have to chroot into a broken system, you can boot your recovery system, mount the broken root (e.g. on /mnt) then use your pacman commands adding the "--root /mnt" option.

Packages don't have to be located in the pacman cache when using "pacman -U". In fact I keep important old packages outside the cache so "pacman -Sc" doesn't purge them. For instance I keep a working version of chromium in /root to see if the new version works on my Samsung Chromebook when a new version comes out (chromium is on the ignore list as I update daily).

Above is for info only, I don't expect it to solve your problem, sorry.

[ArchiMark]

Thanks for your help, warheadsSE.....kernel is 4.2.3......

Thanks vacant, for your help....lots of good info....

Meanwhile, given the difficulties I was having, I decided to reinstall Arch to be safe.......
But everyone's help will be very useful if I need to do something similar in future....