[Bug] /usr/libexec/sailfish-osupdateservice osupdate-check sets ssu re

Bug Reports
24

@pvuorela, thank you very much for still trying to find the source of the disruptive behaviour of /usr/libexec/sailfish-osupdateservice osupdate-check, because IMO this issue (especially in conjunction with the “Remove the following packages”-issue) is the worst and most disruptive issue of SailfishOS which is outstanding for many years, as it results in broken SailfishOS installations which are unfixable for the average user without reflashing or a factory-reset.

  1. Extra repositories
    It is very likely that all reporters had some RPM repositories at OpenRepos enabled. SailfishOS is no fun at all without software from community repositories, so why would one not use them (maybe except for @vige).
    Additional notes:
    • For my devices I can tell for sure, that no OpenRepos repositories were / are enabled, which contain RPM packages which replace “system packages” (i.e. packages from Jolla’s RPM repos), i.e. the packages which are listed for removal when upgrading SailfishOS per GUI (known offending OpenRepos repos are lachs0r, lpr* and NielDK) since SailfishOS 3.4.0 (but this issue occurred years before SailfishOS 3.4.0), with a single exception: My Bluetooth OBEX Filter off, which I deem harmless (for reasoning, see the notes there).
    • The SailfishOS:Chum community repository (rsp. RPM repositories at SailfishOS-OBS in general) is very unlikely to contribute to this issue, because this issue occurred years before user were instructed to use RPM repos at at SailfishOS-OBS directly.
  2. SSU configuration
    I think it is likely that most (all?) reporters of these issue used the command line to upgrade SailfishOS at least once: Either by executing the commands Jolla recommends (i.e. ssu re X.Y.Z.N && version --dup as root) or by using sfos-upgrade which does exactly the same. But I assume that does not constitute “distorting the SSU configuration” for you, right?
    P.S.: I always wondered, why one is not instructed to kill the store-client, empty zypper’s dist-upgrade cache (rm -f /home/.pk-zypp-dist-upgrade-cache/*), remove Jolla’s OS-info cache file (rm -rf $HOME/.cache/sailfish-osupdateservice/os-info) and / or kill ssud followed by removing its caches (rm -rf /var/cache/ssu/*) before executing the ssu re X.Y.Z.N command (which should also automatically start ssud again, as any ssu command), and / or executing ssu ur after the ssu re X.Y.Z.N but before the version --dup? Due to Jolla’s advice in aforementioned documentation (which consistently stayed the same, now already for a decade), I ultimately decided against performing these steps before upgrading SailfishOS in sfos-upgrade proper, but let the user perform them after upgrading SailfishOS by post_sfos-upgrade.
    a. Do I interpret Jolla’s documentation correctly?
    b. Would it be beneficial to employ these considerations, which I have been dismissing all the time? Or the contrary: May these extra commands cause any harm if employed as described before issuing version --dup?

P.S. / side note: In latest rework of Jolla’s documentation how to upgrade SailfishOS at the command line some sections with basically duplicated content were created (e.g. here and there, also here and there, and here, there and there). In general the variants of these sections lower on this page are the more modern ones, but one would have to consolidate them carefully with their corresponding sections further up in order to avoid eliminating any significant information.

Additionally statements were inserted which regularly confuse users, as “For instance, 4.5.0.25 is a stop release but 4.5.0.24 is not.”: This is not really correct, because all point releases of SailfishOS 4.5.0 constitute a sub-version of the same stop release, but it is recommended to upgrade to the latest point release of a stop release from a prior release (e.g. 4.4.0.N). I.e. Jolla’s GUI updater also does upgrade from 4.5.0.24 to 4.6.0.N directly, not from 4.5.0.24 to 4.5.0.25 first and then to 4.6.0.N, AFAIK.
Another such statement is “Never try to downgrade the OS version as this could brick your device.”, which is fearmongering IMO: This might likely make the installed SailfishOS instance unusable and may make it unbootable, but it will not damage hardware (as “brick your device” suggests), prevent using the recovery console, or prevent reflashing a Sony Xperia.