PfSense+ 22.05 -> 23.01 Package removal failure!

azdeltawye

Hello,

After upgrading my SG-5100 to 23.01 I wanted to remove pfblocker devl and install pfblockerng. However, I get the following error when I try to uninstall any package:

removal failed! Another instance of pfSense-upgrade is running.  Try again later

I waited a few hours and tried again with the same result.

Not sure how to troubleshoot this...

mikesel

I have this same issue after updating from 22.05 to 23.01. Attempting to install or remove a package via the GUI results in "Another instance of pfSense-upgrade is running. Try again later".

What is interesting is that the "pfSense-upgrade" command no longer works post-upgrade. Running it results in an error about being unable to contact Netgate's servers. Installing or removing packages using pkg-static directly works correctly and packages that are added or removed this way show up in the GUI (tested with iperf3 package).

I rolled back to a snapshot of 22.05 and performed the upgrade again and the result was the same so I am back on 22.05.

As far as I can tell, pkg_mgr_install.php tries to run pfSense-upgrade and since that fails, pkg_mgr_install.php returns the aforementioned error. Try running pfSense-upgrade and see if yours responds with an error about being unable to connect to the Netgate servers. If it throws an error, then the question becomes why is pfSense-upgrade not working? If I run it on 22.05, it works fine.

Gertjan

After an OS upgrade, pfSense will do a package 'sync', as they can differ on the new OS version just installed.
During that time, admin (manual) upgrade or install requests are not accepted, and signaled as you've seen.
The thing is : this can take time .... like a lot of time.

IMHO : pfSense throttles this upgrade 'check for upgrades' process so their package storage servers are not hit to hard when there is a major update available and everybody updates at the same time.
Again : this is me thinking like 'how would I do it ?'

You can somewhat follow the operations on the command line.
Run 'top' and sort on system activity.
Or run something like

ps ax | grep 'upgrade'

If you think something is wrong, you'll find many forum threads about a possible stalled 'pfSense-upgrade is running' situation : how to unblock it.

MrChris

I am seeing the same thing after upgrading my x86 pf box to 23.01. However, squidguard (which I dont believe I am using but is installed for some reason) started crashing at first reboot during upgrade and every subsequent reboot going forward from what I can tell. I tried to remove squidguard but im getting the same error "removal failed! Another instance of pfSense-upgrade is running. Try again later"

I tried running "ps ax | grep 'upgrade'" but it only shows 1 instance which looks like it the command "ps ax | grep 'upgrade'" as the PID changes with every run.

Guess gotta just wait it out?

Gertjan

@mrchris said in PfSense+ 22.05 -> 23.01 Package removal failure!:

Guess gotta just wait it out?

Well ... yeah.
An things just got worse :
Netgate upgrade servers are getting nuked :

and that pfsense-upgrade process is asking over and over these servers for answers.
Tens of thousands of pfSense devices are doing the same thing like yours right now.

Normally, to make upgrading go smoothly, it was advised to uninstall all packages first before hitting the upgrade pfSense button.
This way, your system gets back in a working state, and when the dust settles, you get them back one by one, and handle individual issues per packages as they come.

I know, I never did that for the last 10 or more years or so ;)

Me, for sure, are NOT upgrading right now.
I'll wait for the weekend, and recheck the forum for regularly - and I'll decide to hit "upgrade" when I've time ( and prepared all my plans B, C etc ).

MrChris

@gertjan Good to know. Thanks. I have good working backups so not that big a deal tbh. good to know its not just me. I wouldn't have thought uninstalling a package would require internet access. for me the issue is squid and or squidguard are trying to start or something and crashing every few hours or so maybe sooner. and since im not using either of those (that I know of) I wanted to just remove them. the service is stopped and or disabled but something is trying to start it back up or something.

Crash report begins.  Anonymous machine information:

amd64
14.0-CURRENT
FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT #0 plus-RELENG_23_01-n256037-6e914874a5e: Fri Feb 10 20:30:29 UTC 2023     root@freebsd:/var/jenkins/workspace/pfSense-Plus-snapshots-23_01-main/obj/amd64/VDZvZksF/var/jenkins/workspace/pfSense-Plus-snapshots-23_01-main/sources/FreeBS

Crash report details:

PHP Errors:
[16-Feb-2023 00:33:02 America/Los_Angeles] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught TypeError: Cannot access offset of type string on string in /usr/local/pkg/squidguard.inc:1069
Stack trace:
#0 /usr/local/pkg/squidguard.inc(93): convert_pfxml_to_sgxml()
#1 /etc/inc/pkg-utils.inc(691): require_once('/usr/local/pkg/...')
#2 /etc/rc.start_packages(66): sync_package('squidGuard')
#3 {main}
  thrown in /usr/local/pkg/squidguard.inc on line 1069

azdeltawye

Ok, things seem to be working, I can remove and install packages now. I just had to wait it out like everyone said...

Everything appears to be good now on my system except for some nut and pfBlocker package errors. I'll have to work those out later.

Thanks everyone for the comments.