This has happened a couple of times but I hardly ever use it as I generally use sudo zypper dup.
Is there an easy link for posting bug and is it worth the effort???
Budge
My very, very personal vire: deinstall PackageKit.
Hi
Yes, aside from testing the updaters, easier to use zypper without interference.
I have several reasons for my attitude.
I do not want the applet at all. It is showing things to end-users that are not of their business. So I have the applet not installed. And without applet the only reason for Packagekit is removed.
PackageKit is not native to openSUSE. openSUSE has very sophisticated software for software management: libzypp, zypper and YaST > Software. On would say one of the important reasons to choose openSUSE above other distributions. So why then go for a surrogate?
And where libzypp c.s. are high on the list of openSUSE maintenance and development, I doubt that PackageKit will follow all new things in libzypp at the very moment they become available.
+1 happening to me as well.
I use it on all my machines. I disabled System Tray > Software Updates. packagekit-background.timer triggers daily with packagekit-background.service running “pkcon get-updates” and notifying by mail upon pending updates:
erlangen:~ # systemctl list-unit-files pack*
UNIT FILE STATE VENDOR PRESET
packagekit-background.service static -
packagekit-offline-update.service static -
packagekit.service static -
packagekit-background.timer **enabled** disabled
4 unit files listed.
erlangen:~ #
Hi
Using any tool that looks for updates in Tumbleweed can lead to issues if it picks a mirror that is in the process of syncing and the release announcement is not made yet… Any Tumbleweed user should be following the Mailing List for snapshot announcements to ensure syncing has finished.
Then if you have additional repositories, these need to rebuild as well…
The first thing I remove on a fresh Tumbleweed install is the update applet. I never trusted it. I religiously update my system manually through the command line with no automation at all.
That said Tumbleweed should not include a tool like Packagekit in the default install though I heard it actually has improved? Because if it is buggy and it was, new users will blindly update and afterwards complain that openSUSE is broken. Following the constant development of Tumbleweed is exciting but one should be prepared for reading the mailing list etc.
System Tray > Software Updates, which uses Packagekit works well for notification as does packagekit-background.service.
Updating the system is different. Hassle is minimized through using priorities and zypper dist-upgrade: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/531333-Zypper-dup-priorities
erlangen:~ # zypper lr -uEP
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Priority | URI
---+---------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 | Packman | Packman | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 90 | http://ftp.fau.de/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
10 | openSUSE-20191106-0 | openSUSE-20191106-0 | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 99 | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/
14 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Non-Oss | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 99 | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/non-oss/
16 | repo-update | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Update | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 99 | http://download.opensuse.org/update/tumbleweed/
1 | Application_Geo | Application_Geo | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 100 | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Application:/Geo/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
3 | BellSoft | BellSoft Repository | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 100 | http://yum.bell-sw.com/
5 | chrome | chrome | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 100 | http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64
7 | home_X0F_HSF | Hackeurs Sans Frontières (openSUSE_Tumbleweed) | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 100 | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/X0F:/HSF/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
8 | jalbum | jalbum | Yes | ( ) No | Yes | 100 | http://jalbum.net/download/software/yumrepo/
9 | myrepo | myrepo | Yes | ( ) No | Yes | 100 | dir:/home/karl/Downloads/myrepo
11 | opensuse-guide.org | libdvdcss repository | Yes | (r ) Yes | Yes | 100 | http://opensuse-guide.org/repo/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
17 | science | Software for Scientists and Engineers (openSUSE_Tumbleweed) | Yes | (r ) Yes | No | 100 | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/science/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
erlangen:~ #
Running ‘zypper refresh’ first is not needed, but doing so is a good idea. For upgrading Tumbleweed I run the following command in a root shell:
erlangen:~ # **zypper dist-upgrade --allow-vendor-change --allow-downgrade --auto-agree-with-licenses**
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Warning: You are about to do a distribution upgrade with all enabled repositories. Make sure these repositories are compatible before you continue. See 'man zypper' for more information about this command.
Computing distribution upgrade...
The following item is locked and will not be changed by any action:
Available:
plymouth
The following 7 NEW packages are going to be installed:
libwx_baseu_net-suse4_0_0 libwx_baseu_xml-suse4_0_0 libwx_gtk3u_aui-suse4_0_0 libwx_gtk3u_gl-suse4_0_0 libwx_gtk3u_html-suse4_0_0 libwx_gtk3u_qa-suse4_0_0 libwx_gtk3u_xrc-suse4_0_0
The following 33 packages are going to be upgraded:
conky firebird hugin libfbclient2 libib_util libjavascriptcoregtk-4_0-18 libreoffice libreoffice-base libreoffice-base-drivers-firebird libreoffice-calc libreoffice-draw libreoffice-filters-optional libreoffice-icon-themes libreoffice-impress libreoffice-l10n-de libreoffice-l10n-en libreoffice-mailmerge libreoffice-math libreoffice-pyuno libreoffice-qt5 libreoffice-writer libwebkit2gtk-4_0-37 libwebkit2gtk3-lang obs-studio openSUSE-release openSUSE-release-appliance-custom openssh openssh-askpass-gnome openssh-helpers python3-feedparser timezone timezone-java webkit2gtk-4_0-injected-bundles
The following product is going to be upgraded:
openSUSE Tumbleweed
20200925-0 -> 20200928-0
33 packages to upgrade, 7 new.
Overall download size: 242.8 MiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional 4.0 MiB will be used.
**Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): y**
Retrieving package conky-1.11.6-8.34.x86_64 (1/40), 688.5 KiB ( 1.5 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: conky-1.11.6-8.34.x86_64.rpm [done]
Retrieving package obs-studio-26.0.0-1.1.x86_64 (2/40), 4.1 MiB ( 12.6 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: obs-studio-26.0.0-1.1.x86_64.rpm ..done (1.8 MiB/s)]
...
erlangen:~ #
zypper will prompt you for continuing the upgrade. You may want to review the list of actions and abort the upgrade if encountering some unwanted action.
As an alternative omit all parameters to the command. This can result in a long list of questions being asked, each to be answered manually.
Many years of performing each and every upgrade (on one of my machines, as a sanity test of the procedure) have shown that this occurs very infrequently. Thus always trying the long command first is my preferred procedure.
I’m using OpenSuse Tumbleweed in two different computers, and in both of them it has started to give that “The PackageKit daemon has crashed” message when trying to update.
I know I can use “sudo zypper dup” to do the exact same thing, but it’s still a bit annoying. I don’t think it should be crashing.
I know I can use “sudo zypper dup” to do the exact same thing
That is the only way to update your system in Tumbleweed.
I use zypper dup and I’m just fine with it, especially if it’s the recommended method, but it doesn’t really address the issue with PackageKit daemon and the auto-updater included in the taskbar.
I’m using the KDE/Plasma flavor which I love. I came over from Arch last year and have never looked back.
The auto update notifier in the taskbar is both familiar and convenient. I’ve used it often and really liked it before it stopped working last month.
If the Tumbleweed team is going to abandon it rather than fix it, then going forward it would seem wise to remove it from the distro, or at least from the taskbar so as not to confuse the typical end-user.
Hi and welcome to the Forum 
It’s there for testing, since every Tumbleweed release is a new release, they only way for updating is via zypper dup… If it’s stopped working (doesn’t mean not using it to cache packages…), then a bug report would be in order openSUSE:Submitting bug reports - openSUSE
May I should have added in my post #4 above that I also have the applet not installed (even if not having PackageKit already disarms it effectively). Simply because I do not want to confuse my (typical or not) end-users with an icon they should not watch or do anything with it.
And I am not even using Tumbleweed, but Leap.
Thank you both for the clarification, and your perspectives makes a lot more sense to me now especially given that the kde updater is not actually native to OpenSuse in the first place.
@malcolmlewis -> It does actually list the updated packages available, the daemon only crashes when trying to install the updates, then it resets itself right afterwards, but again it’s no big deal to me because I can just leave it the way it is, and the when I get an update notification from the applet, I simply run “sudo zypper dup” from my Konsole to install the updates. :good: For that reason, I actually prefer having the applet in the taskbar for the convenience of being notified, even though it won’t install the updates.
@hcvv -> I reread your post #4 and it is very enlightening and well written. I especially like your point about regular users seeing stuff they don’t need to. The first time around I was quickly skimming for a solution to the daemon crash itself.
I think if I were to admin for other users, I would follow your advice on removing the applet, and using Leap for them as well since they likely wouldn’t need to be cutting edge anyway.
Thanks again!
Hi
One of the potential issues I see is once a mirror starts syncing (perhaps on a big Tumbleweed update) if packagekitd runs it may only have a partial set of packages, my SOP, wait for the Mailing List notification (AFAIK, this appears after mirror sync is finished), check my OBS builds are all ok (or rebuilt), then refresh/dup…
Hi,
I am second to this poster. I am total SUSE noob, 1 day noob on Suse, I have just installed the stable LEAP on my mom’s laptop and its just amazing, but Tumbleweed is already giving me errors on clean install on my laptop and I could not update it… I am Linux noob too, as I switched from Win after decades, just three weeks ago and install 15 distros and on my main PC I am on Manjaro 5.8 KDE and here I did not expect any errors on this amazing diamond polished openSUSE… I guess I should reinsatall to leap as its less reliable…? de
If so than the auto updater shall not be preinstalled.
Yes, I have the same problem too, it should be a packageKit bug.The KDE plasmoid in openSUSE Tumblweed is able to update Tumbleweed without any problems, so while zypper dup is the recommended choice, you can also update the system from the applet without problems, as it has been fixed to work in Tumbeweed.
Let’s wait for them to fix the bug …
The notification that there are updates is still useful, though. Without it, one could literally go for months without updating, just because it doesn’t necessarily come to one’s mind to run the updating command from time to time.
Maybe the notification should stay, just to inform the user that there are updates, but give an instruction of the “correct” way to update…