CU 201 - Failed Update

Installing & Running IPFire Update Trouble
1

Been running IPFire on the same Intel i5 Mini-ITX hardware for 5+ years without ever having an issue. I tried the 201 core update, and after 60+ minutes spinning at “running post-update scripts,” I had to go to the box and reboot because my laptop lost connection to WUI. Reboot went as usual, and back at 200 - update log for 201 is empty.

Second attempt to update: pakfire starts running, but finishes in a couple of seconds.

Apr 30 06:35:01 ipfirewall pakfire: PAKFIRE INFO: IPFire Pakfire 2.29-x86_64 started!

Apr 30 06:35:01 ipfirewall pakfire: CORE INFO: Checking for Core-Updates...

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: CORE INFO: core-list.db is 3 seconds old. - DEBUG: noforce

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: CORE UPGR: Upgrading from release 200 to 201

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: PAKFIRE UPGR: core-upgrade-201: Decrypting...

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: CLEANUP: tmp

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: DECRYPT STARTED: core-upgrade-201

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: DECRYPT FINISHED: core-upgrade-201 - Status: 2

Apr 30 06:35:02 ipfirewall pakfire: PAKFIRE INFO: Pakfire has finished. Closing.

If someone would be kind enough to point me in the right direction, it would be most appreciated.

AM

2

Only time I have had upgrades/installs play up is when hardware gone flaky e.g. faulty RAM causing corruption. Could be the case.

3

Appreciate the suggestion, but RAM and disk both check out fine.

AM

4

Check the file /opt/pakfire/db/core/mine.
It must contain 200; otherwise, the update will not occur.

5

Thanks for the reply.

/opt/pakfire/db/core/mine = 200

I get the WARNING: Notice on the main page that the 200 → 201 update is available.
Pakfire shows Core-Update-Level: 200

6

try from console
pakfire update --force
then
pakfire upgrade --force

7

Please check the log in /var/log/pakfire/update-core-upgrade-201.log. That will tell you what went wrong instead of guessing.

8

Thanks for your reply. After the first attempt, that log file was blank - 0 byte
I removed it before trying the second time, but it doesn’t get recreated.

AM

9

Oh, then it must be failing very early before even running the installer. Is there anything else in /var/log/messages or did you post everything it had already?

10

status : 2
The problem occurs before the upgrade starts.

11

What I posted above was from pakfire during the second attempt.
The first attempt looked like it was running normally, but when it hit the 60 minute mark, things were definitely not normal.

There’s alot in /var/log/messages, so I’m not sure what I would be looking for.
If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.

AM

12

Sorry, I missed your reply.
I haven’t tried this method before. I’ll have to do this over the weekend, just in case, when nobody’s around to miss the Internet if something goes sideways.

Thanks for the suggestion.

AM

13

Are you potentially out of disk space or is your system time incredibly out of sync?

14

Unless the update hits efivarfs or /boot particularly hard.

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1.9G 824K 1.9G 1% /run
/dev/sda4 58G 3.2G 52G 6% /
efivarfs 128K 110K 14K 90% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
/dev/sda1 110M 76M 26M 75% /boot
/dev/sda2 32M 278K 32M 1% /boot/efi
/var/lock 8.0M 16K 8.0M 1% /var/lock

System time is accurate: Fri May 1 07:10:24 AM EDT 2026

I plan to try pakfire from the console as suggested.
Is there anything to watch for?

Thanks for your reply

AM

15

plan a backup

16

This is coming from the firmware and has nothing to do with the OS or the updater.

17

Not sure if this is relevant, but the back-up from that same day is 0 mb and is the only failed backup recorded in WUI.

Backup from 2026-04-28-1728.ipf Size 0.00 MB

I presume ‘1728’ is the 24hr time at which the backup ran. That is right around the time that I attempted the first update. If my presumption is incorrect, then I have no idea.

So, I guess my last question would be: what would you do in this scenario?

I appreciate everyone’s time.
AM

18

Try making a backup now.
There might be a problem with your file system (HDD or SSD).
It should be checked.

19

Backup worked fine.

Backup from 2026-05-01-0844.ipf Size 12.65 MB

20

Status → Media → Smart information
or

touch /forcefsck
reboot

To control your file system