Good question.  I think this is a non-bug for the package-list menu.
Launching the menu indeed refreshes the package list every time, respecting
the most recent package-archive values.

It was more that running package-upgrade after adding a package-archive
didn't refresh the list, not knowing that key values had
changed, invalidating the package cache.  From now on, I'll combine changes
with either launching the menu or running package-refresh-contents
manually.  This will likely never happen again, now that my configuration
is where I want it to be.

Please close.

On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 11:46 AM Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Ship Mints <shipmints@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I noticed that I have to force a refresh via 'package-refresh-contents'
> > after changing either 'package-archives' or 'package-pinned-packages' as
> > 'package-menu--refresh' accounts only for changes to
> > 'package--old-archive-priorities'.
> >
> > If agreed, I'd be happy to submit a patch so that package.el will honor
> > changes to variables in between refreshes, and "invalidate" the implied
> > cache.
> >
> > -Stephane
>
> Do you have a recipe to reproduce it?
>