diff --git a/updates.d/20-aur.sh b/updates.d/20-aur.sh
index c022b22..ce2dcfa 100644
--- a/updates.d/20-aur.sh
+++ b/updates.d/20-aur.sh
@@ -4,8 +4,11 @@ echo "Updating AUR..."
 
 YAY_FLAGS="--noconfirm --answerdiff=None --answeredit=None --answerclean=None"
 
-if ! yay -Sua $YAY_FLAGS 2>/dev/null; then
-    echo "yay -Sua returned an error. Let's rebuild YAY."
+# Only rebuild yay when yay itself is broken (e.g. a pacman upgrade bumped
+# libalpm). A failing AUR package is not fixed by a rebuild, so let that error
+# show and fail the hook instead.
+if ! yay --version &>/dev/null; then
+    echo "yay is broken (likely a libalpm bump). Rebuilding yay..."
     sudo pacman -R --noconfirm yay
     cd /tmp
     rm -rf yay
@@ -15,7 +18,6 @@ if ! yay -Sua $YAY_FLAGS 2>/dev/null; then
     cd ..
     rm -rf yay
     cd
-    yay -Sua $YAY_FLAGS
-else
-    echo "AUR up to date."
 fi
+
+yay -Sua $YAY_FLAGS