Bug 2064623 - Fedora 34 cannot be upgraded to Fedora 36 with Gnome Software
Summary: Fedora 34 cannot be upgraded to Fedora 36 with Gnome Software
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gnome-software
Version: 36
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Milan Crha
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard: RejectedBlocker
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2022-03-16 09:58 UTC by Lukas Ruzicka
Modified: 2022-03-30 07:05 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2022-03-30 07:05:55 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Lukas Ruzicka 2022-03-16 09:58:43 UTC
Description of problem:

In the scope of release validation testing for Fedora, we perform upgrade tests with two scenarios for Gnome-Software:

a) upgrade from the stable Fedora Workstation (35 at the moment)
b) upgrade from the previously stable Fedora Workstation (34 at the moment)

The routine goes like this:

1) Install a fresh Workstation.
2) Update it to the latest version.
3) Use `gsettings set org.gnome.software show-upgrades-prerelease true` to enable upgrading to the development version of Fedora (36).
4) Refresh the *Updates* tab of Gnome Software to see the upgrade possibilities.

Currently, everything works fine for Fedora 35, but it does not for Fedora 34. Although everything seems to be fine (no errors reported or found), Fedora 34 only offers to upgrade to Fedora 35.

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
See above

Actual results:
Fedora 34 cannot be upgraded to the latest release.

Expected results:
Fedora 34 should be upgradable to the latest release.

Additional info:

I have reported an infra issue some time ago to make sure, this was not some metadata problem - https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/issue/10587

At that time, no upgrades were possible either from 35 or 34, but the PR that Kevin Fenzi mentions seems to only have solved it partially.

The behaviour is serious enough to block the Beta release in my humble opinion, therefore I will also propose this as a Beta blocker.

Comment 1 Fedora Blocker Bugs Application 2022-03-16 10:00:34 UTC
Proposed as a Blocker for 36-beta by Fedora user lruzicka using the blocker tracking app because:

 This bug violates the Upgrade requirements criterion, because the system cannot be upgraded from the second last version of Fedora. Therefore, I am proposing it a Beta blocker.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_36_Beta_Release_Criteria#Upgrade_requirements

Comment 2 Milan Crha 2022-03-16 11:05:45 UTC
Thanks for a bug report. I guess you wrote the gsettings command, rather than copy&paste it, because it's `show-upgrade-prerelease` key (no 's' in `upgrade`). That's just to avoid confusion for anybody else trying to reproduce it.

I tried it and I did have offered only the f35 upgrade, but since I closed gnome-software and restarted it with: "gnome-software --quit && gnome-software", then it begun to offer me the f36 upgrade.

The Refresh button does not check for the upgrades, it's done only once, thus even if you changed the GSettings key it's not considered and the previously found upgrade is offered.

It works quite the same in f35, as far as I know. Maybe you've been just lucky about the change of the GSettings key, maybe you changed it within the first 60 seconds after the gnome-software start, when a refresh of the upgrades is done.



I would close this without any change. Doing more often pings (and downloads) of the https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/api/collections/ feels like a waste of the resources on the user's side. That file does not change that often.

The most I can propose upstream some patch to refresh the cache after the GSettings key changes, but it's a hidden key, thus the users may expect it not working immediately, but only after a restart of the gnome-software.

Comment 3 Milan Crha 2022-03-16 11:07:05 UTC
By the way, this should be filled against Fedora 34 (it's currently filled against Fedora 36). The two Fedoras use very different versions of the gnome-software.

Comment 4 Lukas Ruzicka 2022-03-16 14:39:14 UTC
(In reply to Milan Crha from comment #2)
> Thanks for a bug report. I guess you wrote the gsettings command, rather
> than copy&paste it, because it's `show-upgrade-prerelease` key (no 's' in
> `upgrade`). That's just to avoid confusion for anybody else trying to
> reproduce it.

Yes, I typed it here.

> The most I can propose upstream some patch to refresh the cache after the
> GSettings key changes, but it's a hidden key, thus the users may expect it
> not working immediately, but only after a restart of the gnome-software.

I did not expect to start it immediately after I changed the settings. I fully restarted
the virtual machine before I even attempted to upgrade, so this should have restarted 
gnome-software. I ended up with the above result. 

What I can do, is try to wait some time and hope it will start working.

I do not think that upgrading from F34 to F35 and then to F35 is what 
users would want to do (which is the only thing I am offered at the moment).

Comment 5 Milan Crha 2022-03-16 14:48:36 UTC
(In reply to Lukas Ruzicka from comment #4)
> I fully restarted the virtual machine before I even attempted to upgrade,
> so this should have restarted gnome-software. I ended up with the above result.

That's odd. I only `gnome-software --quit; gnome-software` and it showed me the F36. Maybe the cache file (~/.cache/gnome-software/fedora-pkgdb-collections/fedora.json) has an old content, but the file is marked new enough to not trigger its download?

> What I can do, is try to wait some time and hope it will start working.

I would try:
1) Check the cache file
2) Move the cache file away, restart the gnome-software. it will trigger the file download.

> I do not think that upgrading from F34 to F35 and then to F35 is what 
> users would want to do (which is the only thing I am offered at the moment).

No no, I'm not suggesting anything like that. I only see it working here, but not for you.

Comment 6 Adam Williamson 2022-03-16 22:42:41 UTC
FWIW, I tested this myself and didn't reproduce; I followed the steps in the test case on a clean F34 install, after changing the gsettings and rebooting, I got a notification in a couple of minutes. Clicking on it launched Software, which showed the upgrade to 36 (not 35).

There probably *is* a real issue here where it can show you 35 instead of 36 depending on some detail of cache timing or whatever, but I don't think that's really worth blocking the Beta release on. We don't honestly expect many people to really upgrade this way at Beta, it's more a case of us wanting to test that the underlying mechanism does work. We only really expect people to *use* it after the Final release, when they start seeing it without having to hack any gsettings settings. If you really want to upgrade early, it's probably easier to use `dnf system-upgrade` than do this twiddling to make the upgrade appear in Software...

Comment 7 Lukas Ruzicka 2022-03-17 08:08:26 UTC
> without having to hack any gsettings settings. If you really want to upgrade
> early, it's probably easier to use `dnf system-upgrade` than do this
> twiddling to make the upgrade appear in Software...

I am not saying I do not agree. I always use dnf for all software manipulation and updates/upgrades. The thing is there is the Beta Criterion for this specifically, as they are Beta tests in matrices that test exactly this scenario. Therefore I proposed it.

However, today after approximately 18 hours since last trying, when the VM got restarted again, I am being offered the Fedora 36 upgrade which is fine and this bug becomes sort of obsolete.

Comment 8 Adam Williamson 2022-03-17 15:52:03 UTC
Right, what I'm trying to say is, I'd +1 a bug like "this flat out does not work at all, there is no way you can get GNOME Software to run the upgrade" but would tend to be -1 to any less clear-cut case like this. Though I might see if I can tweak the criteria to only require this to work at Final, in fact, it really does seem more appropriate that way.

Comment 9 Adam Williamson 2022-03-17 15:52:30 UTC
Anyway, do you want to keep this bug open, or what?

Comment 10 Adam Williamson 2022-03-19 16:11:48 UTC
-3 in https://pagure.io/fedora-qa/blocker-review/issue/678 , marking as rejected.

Comment 11 Lukas Ruzicka 2022-03-30 07:05:55 UTC
No need to keep this open. With the latest Beta candidate I did not have that problem, so I assume that the underlying condition has been fixed.


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