pFsense+ Update issues

CRowmAN

Hi, I hope you can help,

I have been using PFSense for several years on the same computer without too many issues. Originally I installed the CE Edition then upgraded to PFSense+.

I had upgraded back around March from 25.11.1 to 26.03.1

Yesterday I was configuring a wireguard VPN interface, Its the first changes I have made to my pfsense in some time.

Today, I started getting these notifications.

check_upgrade: "Updating repositories metadata" returned error code 1 @ 2026-08-12 10:20:55
check_upgrade: "Updating repositories metadata" returned error code 1 @ 2026-08-12 10:21:54
check_upgrade: "Updating repositories metadata" returned error code 1 @ 2026-08-12 10:22:39
check_upgrade: "Updating repositories metadata" returned error code 1 @ 2026-08-12 10:22:50
pkg: "Fetching drm package" returned error code 1 @ 2026-08-12 10:23:12

when I goto the system update it appears my licence is no longer working as I see this message.

MessagesYour TAC Subscription expired on 2023-11-17. Please renew your TAC Subscription or purchase a pfSense+ subscription by visiting the Netgate store.

I have tried rolling back the config changes and tried restoring back to 25.11.1 but it has not helped.

How can I fix this TAC message and get my pfsense back up to date ?

stephenw10

What does pfSense-repoc -ND show? You can remove the NDI from that. Or send me the output in chat.

CRowmAN

@stephenw10 Thankyou for your help, I Sent it in Chat as requested

tantu07

Seeing same issue. Trying to update from 26.03 to 26.03.1 but the updater wont let me update. Also getting the same error message for TAC subscription ended.

stephenw10

If that device was upgraded to Plus on a Home/Lab license it's a temporary issue on the backend. It should be fixed later today.

tantu07

@stephenw10 Yes, this device was updated to plus on a home/lab license. Thank you

stephenw10

Then you should be good when we deploy the fix later. It will pull a new client cert and see the upgrade again. Nothing you need to do.

techpro2004

My router did not pull the new cert. How do I manually do it. thanks.

netblues

@techpro2004 Patience is a gift.

Bob.Dig

I was upgrading to Release today but had problems afterwards. None of my Port Forwards with pass worked anymore, they were broken and unfixable. But all of this happened in a Hyper-V VM and while I made the upgrade, I also run a Veeam Backup on the host at the same time. So I guess, that was a very bad idea. I restored from an earlier Veeam Backup and now I am waiting to try it again.

pfSense-repoc: zuul_repo_fetch: Failed to read the repository data (1). pfSense-repoc: server returned error response: 400 Bad Request

CRowmAN

now resolved,mine has pulled the new cert, Thankyou

stephenw10

@Bob.Dig said in pFsense+ Update issues:

None of my Port Forwards with pass worked anymore,

You should open a new topic for that. It will be lost here in the license issue posts.

Bob.Dig

@stephenw10 said in pFsense+ Update issues:

You should open a new topic for that.

I will not unless I tried it a second time to upgrade, then without doing a veeam backup at the same time. This machine already was on latest RC showing no problems, so I bet, there is none.

OliB

Fresh 26.07-RELEASE install (Proxmox/QEMU VM) — license/registration backend unreachable

Hitting the same failure across three different paths, all pointing to the same backend:

pfSense-repoc -NZ:

pfSense-repoc: zuul_license_check: Failed to check the license (1).
pfSense-repoc: failed to contact server: Post "https://services.netgate.com/api/license/check": context deadline exceeded

pkg install against pfSense-core/pfSense repos:

pkg: https://update01.atx.netgate.com/pfSense_plus-v26_07_amd64-core/meta.txz: Bad Request

System > Register:

The registration system is not currently available. Please check your network connection and try again.

Ruled out network/local causes before posting:

DNS resolves cleanly, full 1500-byte packets pass with 0% loss (~100ms RTT), no PMTU issue

curl -v to services.netgate.com completes instantly — clean TLS, and manually replaying the exact same license-check POST body gets an immediate 400 invalid license phrase response. So the server is reachable and responsive; it's specifically rejecting this request.

truss -f on pfSense-repoc -NZ shows it stuck in a tight loop of repeated poll() calls with no read(), right up until timeout — looks like a client-side stall, not a network timeout, despite the "context deadline exceeded" message.

The device's client cert (pfSense-repo-0000-cert.pem) has a one-hour validity window (notBefore=Aug 26 15:33 2026 GMT, notAfter=Aug 26 16:33 2026 GMT) and has been expired for several days, since the license check has never successfully completed to refresh it.

Given the other thread about backend licensing issues for Plus devices — is this the same root cause? Happy to share the full truss log or NDI in chat.

stephenw10

@OliB said in pFsense+ Update issues:

context deadline exceeded

That's an unrelated error. We have seen that one time internally, also on a VM.

How many CPU cores on that VM? The system we hit this on had a single CPU core and increasing that to two prevented the error. If you're able to test that it would be a very interesting result.

What repoc version do you have? (pfSense-repoc -v)

OliB

@stephenw10

pfSense-repoc version: 0.41
gnid version: 0.21

Currently running on Proxmox 9.2.3/2 vCPU/12GB RAM/50GB SSD - have increased to 4vCPU for now and will test tomorrow. Mostly running offline but can connect to internet for updates when needed.

stephenw10

Ah, this issue has been fixed in 0.42 which is now available. Run pkg upgrade at the CLI to upgrade it.