Bug 2432617 - When updates are installed the Installed Updates notification sometimes does not appear
Summary: When updates are installed the Installed Updates notification sometimes does ...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gnome-software
Version: 44
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Milan Crha
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-01-25 01:36 UTC by David Sandalf
Modified: 2026-05-13 09:41 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2026-02-03 12:29:26 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Script output before (321 bytes, text/plain)
2026-01-29 21:04 UTC, David Sandalf
no flags Details
Script output after (320 bytes, text/plain)
2026-01-29 21:05 UTC, David Sandalf
no flags Details
Script output after no sudo (356 bytes, text/plain)
2026-01-29 21:59 UTC, David Sandalf
no flags Details


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Github rpm-software-management dnf5 issues 2734 0 None open dnf5daemon: Provide install/change timestamp 2026-05-13 09:41:12 UTC

Description David Sandalf 2026-01-25 01:36:34 UTC
When gnome-software is used to install updates the Installed Updates notification sometimes does not appear after installation.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Updates to be installed appear in gnome-software.
2. Updates are installed.
3. Updates Installed notification sometimes does not appear.
Actual Results:
Updates Installed notification sometimes does not appear after installation of updates.

Expected Results:
Updates Installed notification should always appear after installation of updates.

Comment 1 Milan Crha 2026-01-26 08:45:20 UTC
Thanks for a bug report. The "Updates are installed", what do you mean precisely, please? Like the gnome-software installed them in the background, without your interaction, or you clicked a button to update some apps in the Updates tab of the gnome-software? The updates are checked for up to once per day, when they can be also installed, but the installation as such happens only for the apps which do not require restart, which are most often Flatpak applications. The package updates are only prepared, they are updated the next machine restart. I mean, it also depends what apps had been updated.

Comment 2 David Sandalf 2026-01-26 19:55:28 UTC
I happens when I click on the Update button.  The sequence is: Update->Download->Restart & Update->Restart & Install->system restarts and installs updates->system restarts again->I login->the system shows an Installed Updates notification (sometimes, this is the bug that it does not always appear).

Comment 3 Milan Crha 2026-01-27 08:30:54 UTC
Thanks for the update. I see, then it's for the offline updates (PackageKit in this case). Did the message show up the last time? Or, the next time you'll face this, could you run from a terminal:

```
   for key in `gsettings list-keys org.gnome.software | grep timestamp`; do echo -n "$key:"; gsettings get org.gnome.software $key; done

   ls -l /var/lib/PackageKit/offline-update-competed
```

The gnome-software shows the notification only if the file's timestamp is later than `packagekit-historical-updates-timestamp`, or better said, the updates logged in the file are not considered as new updates when they've been done before the `packagekit-historical-updates-timestamp`.

Comment 4 David Sandalf 2026-01-28 00:40:37 UTC
I don't completely understand your comment 3.  I don't remember whether the notification showed up the last time I did a manual update.  When should I run the script you provided? What am I supposed to do with the results?

Comment 5 Milan Crha 2026-01-28 07:31:44 UTC
You can run the commands now. What I meant in the comment #3 was to run it when you'll notice the misbehaviour, to see what values the gnome-software uses to determine whether to show the notification about the newly installed apps/packages or not. Having both states, aka before and after, would be a good thing too.

The value for the `packagekit-historical-updates-timestamp` should not change unless the updates had been installed. You may verify that (and that no updates had been installed), when you run the commands in the morning, say today and tomorrow, aka in two days, saving the returned values for both days. Then you can run the command again when you'd miss the notification. You might notice when the PackageKit installs the packages, it's part of the machine restart/power off, and if using GNOME you are asked whethr you want to install the updates in the restart/power off dialogs.

Comment 6 David Sandalf 2026-01-29 21:04:29 UTC
Created attachment 2127473 [details]
Script output before

Comment 7 David Sandalf 2026-01-29 21:05:53 UTC
Created attachment 2127475 [details]
Script output after

Comment 8 David Sandalf 2026-01-29 21:11:23 UTC
I ran your script before and after an update where the problem showed up (no Installed Updates notification).  The output was different depending on whether I ran the script as sudo or not.  Attached are the outputs run as sudo before and after the update.

Comment 9 David Sandalf 2026-01-29 21:59:28 UTC
Created attachment 2127479 [details]
Script output after no sudo

I added the script output after update run as a regular user (without sudo).

Comment 10 Milan Crha 2026-01-30 11:58:21 UTC
> The output was different depending on whether I ran the script as sudo or not.

Right, I'm sorry I did not mention it before. You run them as a regular user, because it's how the gnome-software is running too. The `gsettings` command reads the values for the logged in user and it shows all zeros for root, because root never ran gnome-software (and it also should not). The /var/lib/.... file is readable by anybody, thus it also does not need root access.

The `packagekit-historical-updates-timestamp` value is `1769719638` , which can be converted to a readable time with `date --date="@1769719638"`. I'm surely in a different timezone, it shows 9:47 here, but as the PackageKit's file is 12:47, I guess it's that time. I see the timestamp is used to not show update errors multiple times, otherwise it always provides information about the last update.

The `install-timestamp` is `1769644583`, almost 21 hours earlier than the previous time stamp. The `install-timestamp` is updated only if any historical updates are shown.

I'm wondering what the content of the `/var/lib/PackageKit/offline-update-competed` is. I do not want to know the list of the packages (it can be very long), but it looks like something failed to update. It's only 447 bytes long, thus either that or only few packages had been updated.

You can run from a terminal:

    gnome-software --mode=updated

which is the same as if you'd click on the notification about recently updated apps/packages, to see which they were.

Comment 11 Milan Crha 2026-02-03 12:29:26 UTC
I just figured that plain package updates are skipped from the notification (in contrast to an update which contains an app update, which is a package with AppStream data). It's also filled as bug #2392057 (it's for dnf5 plugin, but I realized the PackageKit plugin behaves the same), thus I'm marking this bug as a duplicate of the older bug.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 2392057 ***

Comment 12 David Sandalf 2026-05-06 14:29:19 UTC
Regression.

Bug has reappeared in F44.

Comment 13 Milan Crha 2026-05-07 08:33:40 UTC
What packages had been updated the last time, please? You can find that with `dnf history info` . There had been added a Fedora patch, which is part of the f44, which does notify about bare package updates, not only about app updates, even though it's under review in the upstream [1].

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/merge_requests/2373

Comment 14 David Sandalf 2026-05-08 00:06:17 UTC
I tried the 'dnf history info' command. It showed some information about the most recent dnf transaction I did but there was nothing about gnome-software.

Comment 15 Milan Crha 2026-05-11 08:11:18 UTC
I need to know two things:
1. the exact version of the gnome-software you've currently installed and using, aka `rpm -q gnome-software`
2. what packages had been updated the last time and when they had been updated.

The first will tell whether you've installed gnome-software with the patch, the second will clarify what had been updated and whether it is supposed to be advertised by the gnome-software. Sometimes only things updated by the gnome-software were shown, which some people consider a correct behaviour.

Comment 16 David Sandalf 2026-05-11 17:31:10 UTC
rpm -q qnome-software

output:
gnome-software-50.1-2.fc44.x86_64

As for which package were updated I will have to wait for the next update so that I can check which packages were updated.

Comment 17 Milan Crha 2026-05-12 07:19:49 UTC
The `dnf history info` shows you what was happening the last time dnf did any install/update/remove of the packages and when. For me, it says:

   Transaction ID : 356
   Begin time     : 2026-05-11 08:19:47
   Begin rpmdb    : faa2352987fe459a08942f9a1c8cead6c8178bae842b9a56459febb356489619
   End time       : 2026-05-11 08:19:53
   End rpmdb      : e5d1f84d7af5139ca3baef856ac091b3f4966f5b9566660d5e7733b832857048
   User           : 0 Super User <root>
   Status         : Ok
   Releasever     : 44
   Description    : dnf5daemon-server
   Comment        : 
   Packages altered:
     Action  Package                     Reason Repository
     Install opencode-0:1.14.48-1.x86_64 User   @commandline

The "dnf5daemon-server" description currently/usually means "done by gnome-software".

The `dnf history list | more` lists more changes, where you can see date/time when each was done. If you've a rough time when you think the things misbehaved, then you can pick the transaction ID and use it as `dnf history info ID` to get information for that particular transaction.

Maybe there had been more changes done after the latest update, which can confuse the reporting. The bug #2457884 is related to that.

Comment 18 David Sandalf 2026-05-12 14:09:55 UTC
I got an upgrade the upgraded many packages but did not show an upgrade notification. Among them were: epiphany-runtime and firefox-langpacks.  The epiphany-runtime upgraded from version 50.1-1.fc44.x86_64 to version 50.4-1.fc44_86_84. I can reproduce the bug by running "sudo dnf downgrade epiphany-runtime" from the command line and then running gnome-software to do an upgrade. There is no notification.

Comment 19 Milan Crha 2026-05-13 08:53:59 UTC
Thanks for the update. I tested it here with gnome-software-50.1-4.fc44.x86_64, only instead of epiphany-runtime I chose, tmux, which is also just a package, without AppStream data. I downgraded it, then gnome-software recognized a new update and when I installed it through the gnome-software I did not receive any notification about this bare package installation. The gnome-software knows about it, because when I run from a terminal: `gnome-software --mode-updated` it shows the tmux in the list of the updated apps.

It looks like either something in the 50.1 upstream release, or the changes in the dnf5 plugin, somehow voided the custom patch from https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/gnome-software/c/62c56990007f534d71f1b598402ff7a9f77dc553?branch=f44 . This custom patch was not accepted in upstream yet.

Comment 20 Milan Crha 2026-05-13 09:41:12 UTC
Okay, found it, the dnf5daemon-server does not return install timestamp, thus the dnf5 plugin in the gnome-software uses "buildtime" instead. As the build time is before the last (previous) notification about newly installed packages, it is ignored.

I opened https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf5/issues/2734 for it.


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.