Stuck on CE 2.7 with a php error causing available packages to be blank.

yobyot

I'm hoping someone might be able to give me a clue on how to get out of the inconsistent state I appear to be in on a heavily customized CE 2.7 install.

As you can see in the image, it appears that, somehow, php is a mess on my production CE 2.7 instance. I don't recall changing anything and I really wouldn't bother with the upgrade except that whatever is causing this error is also probably causing "available packages" to be blank. And I really want to install a package I need for VPN usage.

I've searched and searched with no good clues resulting and I'm scared stiff of installing a fresh copy and using a backup config file. There's just too much "stuff" going on and it would be better just to fix this problem in CE 7.0.

Thanks in advance.

stephenw10

Run pkg-static -d update to see what the actual error is.

Try running pfSense-repoc and see if throws an error.

Steve

yobyot

@stephenw10

Thank you!

Here's a screenshot of the first error from pkg-static and I've also attached the entire error log. It seems like there's a self-signed cert somewhere that isn't acceptable. But I'm not sure were that might be.

The second screenshot shows that pfSense-repoc did not produce an error.

Is there an issue with connecting over IPv6?

I appreciate your help.

pkg-staticErrors.txt

stephenw10

Ah OK run certctl rehash and then retry.

yobyot

@stephenw10

Voila!

Works. I also needed to set "previous stable release" in System, Update, Update Settings after checking that System, Update, System Update was also set to "previous stable release".

But all's well.

Was this something I did?

Thank you very much!

stephenw10

No it's a known issue with the update to pkg in 2.7.1: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/releases/2-7-1.html#troubleshooting

yobyot

@stephenw10

Ah ha!

But someone not looking to upgrade at this time (that’s me) wouldn’t necessarily find the known problem description in the 2.7.1 release notes.

Still, glad I didn’t mess sumthin’ up - and grateful for your assistance.

SteveITS

@yobyot ok but do not ever install packages for a branch you aren’t on. (See my sig)

stephenw10

Yes this is a problem that hopefully should be prevented going forward with any luck.

yobyot

@stephenw10

Just an editorialization and feedback.

I didn't (consciously) download or configure any 2.7.1 packages.

In fact, I tried hard to avoid it.

But somehow, an errant OpenVPN package or something OpenVPN needed was, in fact, downloaded and crashed OpenVPN as a result.

I figured at this point, it was better to move forward than try to fix the issue. So, I recluctantly upgraded to CE 2.7.1.

But I can't help but feel like this was forced. pfSense CE is wonderful and works like a charm. Until now, I've never really had any issues that require updates to "clean up" a package issue. And for sure, I've never had the next release step on the current release. One would expect the reverse.

I know the devs try hard to make upgrades seamless. This one (a point release!) just wasn't.

SteveITS

@yobyot said in Stuck on CE 2.7 with a php error causing available packages to be blank.:

I've never had the next release step on the current release

Your issue was as noted above. However addressing this comment, it's been a longstanding issue in pfSense. See https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/10464 but especially note the last note:

"The update check process has changed recently (available in 23.09 and CE dev currently).

Now relevant repos are checked for updates without affecting the current repo itself. This avoids automatically updating (e.g. pkg) against a repo that doesn't have compatible packages (hence no more pkg dynamic library errors)."

The fix is targeted to 2.8.0 per the top of the page.

PS - hooray!