What now? Upgrade to 4.6.0.13 failed

[Volker_S]

During the update, my phone displayed pages and pages of installed packages that I should please uninstall.
This was so extensive (including the dbus I was supposed to uninstall, among other system files) that you can’t take it seriously and can normally ignore it. I and others have already done this several times.

Since all the qt5 packages (including kf5) were also reported this time, I finally removed them, as I have never used Angelfish and the associated QTRunner. As far as I know, I didn’t remove any more QT packages than necessary. In any case, everything worked perfectly after the reboot after removing the packages).

After running a pkcon refresh and pkcon update and rebooting again, I started the installation.

When the white install bar arrived at the end, it wrote above the bar “Sailfish could not be updated. Please try again later.”
Below the white bar it said “Restart”. I then tapped on it. It started twice and then showed me a bright screen saying “No apps started” four times.
After that, the screen remained dark - nothing happened.

If I then press and hold the PWR button, it shuts down. Now you can start it again and at the end you get 4 screens with “no apps started”.

As I had installed a 2 SIM card (inactive) 2 weeks ago, I have now removed this. But that didn’t bring any improvement.

Now I’m really thinking about whether I should go through the whole flash and installation orgy (until I have everything as it was before). However, I haven’t had any problems with my XA2 since the end of 2019.
Partition details before the upgrade: /home: 1.8GB and root: 3.2GB / Device: XA2+

Or does anyone else have an idea how to bring the bone back to life without flashing?

[davidrasch]

My phone (XA2 Ultra) is in the same state after trying to upgrade. I don’t even manage to start recovery mode

[Obikawa]

First of all, do not make any rushed decisions.

I remember I did have a problem with the upgrade, but I do not have the habit of noting down everything I do, and the failure was not as deep as yours. I was able to rewrite a zypper configuration file to the previous release and restart the update process after clearing up the dependency check failures.

I have a suspicion, that there is a whole class of bugs being triggered here, where a deep dependency like the GNU lib C, for example, has silently held back a previous upgrade, and now breaks on the next cycle. It should have been removed before the upgrade process, but it is too late for some people now.

Unfortunately, I have used exclusively rolling release distributions on my computers for years, so I am not able to guide you safely through an rpm debugging session. Hopefully someone more experienced in this field can use my thoughts and provide you with a better guidance.

[throwaway69]

[Release notes] Sauna 4.6.0.11

A very short summary if anyone else is (still) stuck in the same situation, doesn’t feel like going through the backup-reflash-restore backup route, and had already enabled developer mode prior to updating. If you don’t know how to do some or all of these things, I think all information is in the posts above (starting at post 124) and it’s best if you read them through first. open recovery mode (install it via flashboot first, depending on your device) use the shell, not ssh mount /home accord…

[davidrasch]

the recovery image did not start. Did you use the one from 4.5 or 4.6?

If I run fastboot boot hybris-recovery.img the prompt on windows exactly looks like the screenshot in the documentation, but the device seems to run a regular startup, but then ends with a black screen

[throwaway69]

4.5 as 4.6 wasn’t available during EA, did you flash both parts? boot_a and _b (Recovery Mode | Sailfish OS Documentation)

[davidrasch]

I have an XA2 Ultra, for that the documentation is different I think

[davidrasch]

recovery 4.6 doesn’t seem to work. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the 4.5 recovery, only 4.4. Can it cause more harm if I try a too low version?

[Volker_S]

In this state, you can only guess which version is on it. But since it definitely said “Sailfish could not be updated. Please try again later.” - I assume that I still have the previous version (4.5.0.25) active. Here on my hard disk I only have version 4.5.0.16. Would that also be a “forbidden” downgrade?

[davidrasch]

I figured it would be easiest to flash newly since I have a backup. The script ran through completely for 4.6 but then after restarting at the end it displays the device is corrupt and can’t boot with a red warning sign. Does this mean it is a permanent brick or is the 4.6 image broken?

Edit: I tried next to flash version 4.4 for which I found image on my PC, but this also lead to a non-booting state. Is there anything else I could try?

Update: I reverted to Android (8 lol) with Emma tool and was able to boot again. Then I retried to flash 4.6 and was successful (I guess the problem with flashing before was that I messed up the partition scheme)
New problem: I guess now the user is defaultuser and no longer nemo. What do I have to do to load my backup? Can anybody give me advice here? Thank you in advance

[ljutica]

@Volker_S

qt5 packages (including kf5)

I have 44 packages? How to remove them??

PXL-20240620-144614060-1 hosted at ImgBB

[throwaway69]

You can create a symlink with this command

devel-su ln -s /home/defaultuser /home/nemo

[davidrasch]

that sounds not too complicated, but how do I create a symlink?
Edit: Thank you, should have read properly. I guess I need a restart after that. Or do I have to reload the backup once more?

[jovirkku]

@Volker_S

Here on my hard disk I only have version 4.5.0.16. Would that also be a “forbidden” downgrade?

Downgrading over-the-air is “forbidden” as it may break there system. Flashing an earlier release is okay. After that, over-the-air upgrade(s) bring the latest OS to the phone.

[jovirkku]

@ljutica

I have 44 packages? How to remove them??

The warning about incompatible packages when starting an OS update may be a false one, unfortunately. System packages (e.g. qt5, kf5) should not be removed. The warning should be ignored in that case.

Using zypper requires root rights. Use devel-su to get them. After that, you can install/use zypper.

[ljutica]

Fu*kit, I delete most of the packages…

[wetab73]

@Obikawa

I have a suspicion, that there is a whole class of bugs being triggered here, where a deep dependency like the GNU lib C, for example, has silently held back a previous upgrade, and now breaks on the next cycle.

@jovirkku

The warning about incompatible packages when starting an OS update may be a false one, unfortunately. System packages (e.g. qt5, kf5) should not be removed. The warning should be ignored in that case.

This problem is caused by this very bug that Jolla for years has been neglecting to fix.

ssu re is set to the new release version as soon as an OS update starts downloading. If the user then does not apply the downloaded update right away but quits the GUI updater, the device is left with the incorrect release version, which is the source of all those issues. Starting the update at some later time causes this very problem, i.e. request to remove lots of system packages.

See e.g.

SFOS version 4.4.0.58 without upgrade

When the update is being downloaded, all the repositiories get switched to 4.4.0.58. Interrupting the download of the update leaves the system in such a state… It happened to me too when I interrupted downloading the 4.4 update. I realized it when I then tried to download the ofono package from 4.3.0.15 (to replace my patched version that the update was complaining about) and it downloaded it from 4.4.0.58 repo instead, which broke telephony. I fixed it as follows: devel-su ssu re 4.3.0.15 …

SFOS version 4.4.0.58 without upgrade

While @wetab73 correctly denoted … … this may also happen at any other time, when a new SailfishOS release is available, see: To avoid any mishaps (by mistyping or mis-guessing the truly installed SailfishOS release) one may use (as described in the bug report) to bring the SailfishOS installation into a consistent state again: devel-su ssu re "$(grep -F VERSION_ID /etc/os-release | cut -s -f 2 -d "=")" rm -f /var/cache/ssu/features.ini ssu ur Then either run post_sfos-upgrade (if sfos-up…

[eson]

@jovirkku

System packages (e.g. qt5, kf5) should not be removed. The warning should be ignored in that case.

Come on @jovirkku.
I know it’s Nordic midsommerfeast, and I am as drunk as anybody else , but there is several threads in forum saying that OTA update failed if not removing those packages and I’m actually one of the victims.
Upgrade failed, leaving those packages, but went smoothly through when removed.

[Release notes] Sauna 4.6.0.13

I, too, had a multitude of problematic packages (mostly opt-kf5_…) from Chum that I couldn’t remove due to circular dependencies. So I ignored the advice to remove, which has often worked before, but first install attempt failed with a “Try again later” message. Luckily, someone else had recently run into the same problem and @eson provided a solution: The next upgrade attempt succeeded without issue, after I had removed all offending packages and rebooted. Thank you @Jolla for the release! …

Chum GUI cannot remove Opt Kf5 packages

You solution worked. Thanks.

[throwaway69]

The ones with opt prefix may cause issues, the ones without are system’s

[eson]

OK, thanks for the clarification! I’m pretty sure there where none without opt prefix.