Fresh Pioneer install with stable SD card image stuck

Avron · January 13, 2024, 10:22pm

Doing a fresh Pioneer install using the stable SD card image (this is my Pioneer with HDD, SD card had problems so I am doing a fresh install, HDD not wiped), after having accepted to use backports, after a while, plinth is back with this:

In English:

“this app needs update, update now?”
button “update”.

I tried to press “update”, after a long while of updating, I get the same screen again.

Some extracts of the journal here:

janv. 13 21:14:05 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: # plinth..install(…) 
janv. 13 21:14:05 freedombox sudo[14314]:   plinth : PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/share/plinth/actions/actions plinth install --write-fd 17
janv. 13 21:14:05 freedombox sudo[14314]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=110)
janv. 13 21:14:18 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: [614B blob data]
janv. 13 21:14:18 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Preparing to unpack .../curl_7.88.1-10+deb12u5_armhf.deb ...
janv. 13 21:14:18 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Unpacking curl (7.88.1-10+deb12u5) over (7.88.1-10+deb12u4) ...
janv. 13 21:14:19 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Preparing to unpack .../libcurl4_7.88.1-10+deb12u5_armhf.deb ...
janv. 13 21:14:19 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Unpacking libcurl4:armhf (7.88.1-10+deb12u5) over (7.88.1-10+deb12u4) ...
janv. 13 21:14:20 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Preparing to unpack .../libcurl3-gnutls_7.88.1-10+deb12u5_armhf.deb ...
janv. 13 21:14:21 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Unpacking libcurl3-gnutls:armhf (7.88.1-10+deb12u5) over (7.88.1-10+deb12u4) ...
janv. 13 21:14:22 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Setting up libcurl3-gnutls:armhf (7.88.1-10+deb12u5) ...
janv. 13 21:14:22 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Setting up libcurl4:armhf (7.88.1-10+deb12u5) ...
janv. 13 21:14:22 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Setting up curl (7.88.1-10+deb12u5) ...
janv. 13 21:14:22 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.36-9+deb12u3) ...
janv. 13 21:14:23 freedombox /usr/share/plinth/actions/actions[14316]: Initialized apps - apache, api, names, avahi, storage, backups, cockpit, firewall, config, datetime, diagnostics, dynamicdns, first_boot, help, letsencrypt, networks>
janv. 13 21:14:30 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: quota not working (qgroup not set)
janv. 13 21:14:31 freedombox /usr/share/plinth/actions/actions[14316]: Error executing action: Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100.
                                                                       Traceback (most recent call last):
                                                                         File "/usr/share/plinth/actions/actions", line 93, in _call
                                                                           return_values = func(*arguments['args'], **arguments['kwargs'])
                                                                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                                         File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/privileged/packages.py", line 64, in install
                                                                           with action_utils.apt_hold_freedombox():
                                                                         File "/usr/lib/python3.11/contextlib.py", line 137, in __enter__
                                                                           return next(self.gen)
                                                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                                         File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/action_utils.py", line 450, in apt_hold_freedombox
                                                                           yield subprocess.check_call(['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox'])
                                                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                                         File "/usr/lib/python3.11/subprocess.py", line 413, in check_call
                                                                           raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
                                                                       subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100.
janv. 13 21:14:32 freedombox sudo[14314]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
janv. 13 21:14:32 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Error running action plinth..install(*(), **{'app_id': 'upgrades', 'packages': ['unattended-upgrades', 'needrestart'], 'skip_recommends': False, 'force_configuration': None, 'reinstal>
janv. 13 21:14:32 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Error installing package: Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100.
                                                     Traceback (most recent call last):
                                                       File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/package.py", line 345, in install
                                                         privileged.install(**kwargs)
                                                       File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/actions.py", line 57, in wrapper
                                                         return _run_privileged_method_as_process(module_name, action_name,
                                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                       File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/actions.py", line 116, in _run_privileged_method_as_process
                                                         return _wait_for_return(*wait_args)
                                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                       File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/actions.py", line 154, in _wait_for_return
                                                         raise exception
                                                     subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100.
janv. 13 21:14:32 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Setup completed: upgrades: Error updating app: Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100. Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned no>
janv. 13 21:14:33 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Error running setup - Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100.
janv. 13 21:14:33 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Unable to complete setup: Command '['apt-mark', 'hold', 'freedombox']' returned non-zero exit status 100.
janv. 13 21:14:33 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Will try again in 10 seconds
janv. 13 21:14:41 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: Running kernel seems to be up-to-date.

The same error is repeated at 21:15:41, 21:17:00, 21:18:11, 21:19:57, 21:21:07.

Then I have

janv. 13 21:21:20 freedombox /usr/bin/plinth[13643]: Error executing command - ['sudo', '--non-interactive', '--close-from', '22', '/usr/share/plinth/actions/actions', 'plinth', 'is_package_manager_busy', '--write-fd', '21'], b'', b''

Then the first kind of error again at 21:22:04, 21:23:57, 21:31:04, 21:32:12, 21:33:19, 21:34:14, 21:36:13, 21:37:30,.
I left the Pioneer running, not sure what to do now.

Said · January 14, 2024, 1:14pm

I have occaisionally had this problem when redoing an installation of FreedomBox, though I don’t know if the error in your log is the exact same as those that I have had. What has worked for me in the past was to SSH into the FreedomBox and manually induce ‘sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade’ or ‘sudo apt install freedombox’. You could also try to unhold the package with ‘sudo apt-mark unhold freedombox’. If none of these options work, I find I get a more descriptive error when trying these than in Plinth.

Said · January 14, 2024, 1:16pm

I should also mention I usually complete the update to the latest version before enabling the backports. For me, this usually causes the fewest problems. If you end up having to redo the installation, you could give that a try as well.

Avron · January 14, 2024, 2:16pm

Thanks for the advice. On another Pioneer, I had to unmark the freedombox package once, but this error message is actually looking like plinth or some other component wanted to mark the freedombox package as hold but this failed for some reason. I don’t know why plinth would want to do that, perhaps to run something during which the freedombox package should not be upgraded?

I did not mention it but when I tried “apt -s upgrade” yesterday, I saw there was only lighttpd and another related package to upgrade. In my recollection, freedombox was already v24.1. Today, after the nightly reboot, there is no error in the journal and apparently no package to upgrade, but I have not installed any application yet.

For now, I will not reinstall. My plan is to install only samba and sharing to do some testing (I have not used them so far). I’ll see if anything looking like a problem pops up or not.

This is interesting. Do you usually enable backports before installing applications or doing a restore, or only after? For a use case with only sharing and samba, I am thinking that backports are not really useful and I could do without them.

Said · January 14, 2024, 4:41pm

It depends on the application. I will try to install as many of them as I can without enabling the backports before I enable them, and then I will run the update again.

joseph · January 14, 2024, 11:15pm

I was diving into this as a filesystem problem because of this message:

janv. 13 21:14:30 freedombox unattended-upgrade[5473]: quota not working (qgroup not set)

I see now I have the same message in my logs and I do not have quotas enabled. I think you are going in the right direction with package mechanics. Don’t pivot to filesystem quotas. These would not be enabled by default.