Bug 2411697

Summary:	update to fedora 43 leaves default.target pointing to runlevel5
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Henrique Martins <fedora>
Component:	systemd	Assignee:	systemd-maint
Status:	CLOSED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	43	CC:	daan.j.demeyer, fedoraproject, lnykryn, msekleta, suraj.ghimire7, systemd-maint, vchepkov, yuwatana, zbyszek
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Upgrades
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2025-11-05 16:56:45 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
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Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Henrique Martins 2025-11-01 03:54:19 UTC

For systems where the original install was several (not sure how many) fedora versions back, and has been moved forward via dnf upgrage, updating from fedora 42 to fedora 43 leaves /etc/systemd/system/default.target pointing to /lib/systemd/system/runlevel5.target, but all runlevelN.target links in /lib/systemd/system are gone.

After rebooting into F43 the system goes into recovery mode. Looking through journalctl -xb doesn't make the error obvious.  Try to switch targets with systemctl isolate doesn't work.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. needs a system dnf upgraded from an older install, not sure old
2. dnf upgrade
3. reboot
Actual Results:
System boots into recovery 

Expected Results:
system at previous default.target

Additional Information:
Redoing the link to point to the proper named target, the one the old runlevelN pointed to in /lib/systemd/system fixes it.

Will mark medium severity.  It will fool recent inexperienced Fedora users, but unlikely those would have such an old dnf upgraded system.  It stomped me for at least 30 minutes.

Comment 1 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2025-11-05 16:56:45 UTC


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 2411195 ***