Bug 1370596

Summary: Upgrade with gnome-software does nothing when clicking "Install" and does not show error message either
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Basic Six <drbasic6>
Component: gnome-softwareAssignee: Richard Hughes <rhughes>
Status: CLOSED EOL QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 26CC: klember, rhughes
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Reopened
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2018-05-29 11:47:25 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:

Description Basic Six 2016-08-26 17:40:31 UTC
Description of problem:

Upgrading from Fedora 23 to Fedora 24 does not work using gnome-software.

There seems to be a new feature of gnome-software that allows upgrading Fedora using a simple and user-friendly gui (1). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work (at least in some cases) and when it fails, it doesn't tell the user why (i.e., show an error message).

It appears like it's supposed to work similarly to Ubuntu's upgrade tool that shows a dialog window, allowing the user to start the upgrade process without requiring technical knowledge of the system (typing "dnf" commands as root).
However, although clicking on the "Install" button usually asks for a password (and it sometimes even lists conflicting packages, like kernel), it then does absolutely nothing.

It may be that gnome-software is buggy and the "Install" button simply doesn't do anything yet. Or it may be that a package conflict has been detected. Or maybe something else has happened. Who knows.

This bug report is mainly about gnome-software not showing an error message and doing nothing when it fails to start the upgrade process.



Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

gnome-software 3.20.4 on Fedora 23



How reproducible:

On two computers: Everytime



Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start gnome-software --mode updates
2. Click "Download", wait for "Install" button to show up.
3. Click "Install": Enter password, nothing.



Actual results:

Nothing. Something has probably failed, but there's no error message.



Expected results:

If a gui experiences an error, it should show an error dialog to the user. Also, the user should not have to run commands to debug the gui tool.



Additional info:

There are third-party repositories enabled on the system: RPM Fusion, Google Chrome, Spot
Disabling all of them did not help. Even if that was the only reason it failed to start, it should provide a clear error message rather than doing nothing.

Running from CLI, the following text is printed when clicking on "Install":
(gnome-software:20737): Gs-WARNING **: Calling org.gnome.SessionManager.Reboot failed: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files
This may indicate that the upgrade process has been prepared and the tool merely failed to reboot to initiate the process (and it didn't tell the user about it). But after rebooting manually, the system boots normally and no upgrade process is started.

(1) https://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-24-feature-graphical-upgrades/

Comment 1 Kalev Lember 2016-08-26 17:42:26 UTC
Are you using gnome-shell?

Comment 2 Basic Six 2016-08-26 17:49:10 UTC
No. Last attempt was in KDE.

Comment 3 Kalev Lember 2016-08-26 17:51:41 UTC
OK, that's the issue then. gnome-software's distro upgrade functionality needs gnome-shell to work as of right now as it uses gnome-shell's shutdown dialog for final triggering. gnome-software should probably detect that it is running under non-GNOME and display an error in that case.

Comment 4 Basic Six 2016-08-26 18:14:15 UTC
Not "probably". If something goes wrong, an error message should be shown.

Comment 5 Fedora End Of Life 2016-11-25 09:32:00 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 23 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 23. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '23'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 23 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 6 Fedora End Of Life 2016-12-20 21:23:30 UTC
Fedora 23 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2016-12-20. Fedora 23 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Comment 7 Basic Six 2016-12-23 14:58:59 UTC
It seems like this is still the case when upgrading either Fedora 23 or 24 to Fedora 25 using gnome-software.

If the user is in a KDE session, gnome-software will fail to initiate the reboot that starts the upgrade process. Still no error message. A user who uses KDE exclusively is left in the dark.

Comment 8 Fedora End Of Life 2017-07-25 22:40:36 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 24 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 2 (two) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 24. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '24'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version'
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not
able to fix it before Fedora 24 is end of life. If you would still like
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 9 Basic Six 2017-07-27 13:37:40 UTC
Nothing has changed. I tried to upgrade Fedora 25 to 26 with gnome-software in a KDE session and it did ask for a sudo password, but then nothing happened.

I understand that gnome-software may not work in KDE and I don't see a problem with KDE users having to install and use Gnome/Mate/Cinnamon to upgrade their system. It's certainly difficult to develop such a tool that works in different desktop environments.

But *please* show an error message if the upgrade can't be initiated. Maybe even something vague like "upgrade cannot be started in this environment" that people can google. Anything, but not nothing!

Having a button that does not do anything in a widely used system is awkward. And it's not some minor third-party application, it's "the upgrade tool" which could be described as an essential core utility of the system (not counting server setups without gui, of course).
It's the "Install" button of the system upgrade tool that does not do anything. That's just not professional.

Comment 10 Fedora End Of Life 2017-11-16 19:29:33 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 25 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 25. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '25'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version'
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not
able to fix it before Fedora 25 is end of life. If you would still like
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 11 Fedora End Of Life 2018-05-03 08:33:17 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 26 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 26. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '26'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version'
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not
able to fix it before Fedora 26 is end of life. If you would still like
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 12 Fedora End Of Life 2018-05-29 11:47:25 UTC
Fedora 26 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2018-05-29. Fedora 26
is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any
further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Comment 13 Basic Six 2021-05-07 11:50:50 UTC
The official Fedora system upgrade tool is still broken in the same way and it has been broken for five years. This is ridiculous. Are you not supporting KDE and therefore don't care that it doesn't work?

The best part is that it actually does work most of the time - if the user initiates the reboot manually after clicking "Install" and waiting forever for nothing to happen. But why would anyone reboot the system when the upgrade tool appears to have failed to initiate the upgrade? There's zero feedback, it's just a dead button.

Why are you not fixing this last bit to make your update tool work, after so many years? Is it too complicated to initiate a reboot in KDE? Have you tried this command:

qdbus org.kde.ksmserver /KSMServer logout 1 1 3

And in any case, you should display a message that the tool is attempting to restart the system to initiate the upgrade! That way, when nothing happens after clicking "Install", the user would at least know what to do!