Weird partial upgrade to Fedora 37

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Hello,

I have a weird issue. I did the upgrade through gnome-software from fedora 36. It informed me that some packages like nautilus megasync extension would be removed. I went ahead and rebooted.

It went fine for a while and I think somewhere at 60% progress it just rebooted like it was finished. I’m not sure about the percentage because I was watching something on Youtube on my tablet.

Anyway, it felt weird that at the kernel choice screen I had an fc36 6.0.8 kernel, not a fc37. Went ahead and to my surprise I got a log screen and managed to log in.

It seems that most of gnome 43 is there. evolution-data-server did not get upgraded and errors out.

When I try a dnf upgrade --refresh it still looks in the FC36 repos. Something isn’t right but I don’t know what to do.

Last time this saved me, but now it did not work: Reddit - Failed Fedora system upgrade

Hoping that a reinstall is not the only option. I’ve had issues previously with upgrades. As they go, this time at least the system seems functional.

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Since the system seems functional it should be fairly simple.

  1. dnf distro-sync --refresh --allowerasing to get everything in sync with the currently active version – then reboot.
  2. repeat the upgrade, but this time use dnf. dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=37
  3. when step 2 finishes and you are able to leave the machine idle for the upgrade, complete the upgrade with dnf system-upgrade reboot
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First command gave me this output:

 Problem: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: NetworkManager, dnf, gnome-shell, grub2-efi-ia32, grub2-efi-x64, grub2-pc, grub2-tools-minimal, systemd, systemd-udev
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages)

Second command resulted in:

No match for group package "reiserfs-utils"
No match for group package "authselect-compat"
No match for group package "gstreamer1-libav"
No match for group package "intel-media-driver"
No match for group package "google-noto-sans-devanagari-ui-vf-fonts"
No match for group package "google-noto-sans-syriac-estrangela-fonts"
No match for group package "smc-rachana-fonts"
No match for group package "tlomt-junction-fonts"
No match for group package "xmms"
No match for group package "khmer-os-fasthad-fonts"
No match for group package "chrome-gnome-shell"
No match for group package "smc-meera-fonts"
No match for group package "ubuntu-title-fonts"
No match for group package "vdr-skinsoppalusikka"
No match for group package "kanjistrokeorders-fonts"
No match for group package "libguestfs-tools"
No match for group package "cvsgraph"
No match for group package "qgnomeplatform"
No match for group package "drehatlas-xaporho-fonts"
No match for group package "banshee"
No match for group package "yanone-tagesschrift-fonts"
No match for group package "bcm283x-firmware"
No match for group package "drehatlas-warender-bibliothek-fonts"
No match for group package "sil-scheherazade-fonts"
No match for group package "xorg-x11-drv-armsoc"
No match for group package "google-noto-sans-syriac-eastern-fonts"
No match for group package "culmus-shofar-fonts"
No match for group package "vollkorn-fonts"
No match for group package "xmms-flac"
No match for group package "google-noto-sans-syriac-western-fonts"
No match for group package "google-noto-sans-tibetan-fonts"
No match for group package "polarsys-b612-sans-fonts"
Error: 
 Problem: problem with installed package mlocate-0.26-301.fc37.x86_64
  - package mlocate-0.26-301.fc37.x86_64 conflicts with plocate provided by plocate-1.1.16-2.fc37.x86_64
  - package plocate-1.1.16-2.fc37.x86_64 conflicts with mlocate provided by mlocate-0.26-301.fc37.x86_64
  - conflicting requests
(try to add '--allowerasing' to command line to replace conflicting packages or '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages)

I did not try the third since the second errored out.

Skip the first since it had progressed far enough that is not an option.
The error in the second tells you to add --allowerasing to the command. The No match lines are information messages that can be ignored.
You can try that and if it fails then remove one or both the named packages and try again. They can be installed later if needed.
The third command cannot be done until the second completes successfully.

I managed to fix it… I hope.

Went back to the Reddit post I mentioned.

When doing dnf remove --duplicates --releasever=37 --allowerasing it would complain about a package (orca). I removed with with dnf and it also uninstalled its dependencies which had a mix of fc36 and fc37 packages. After this, the command worked.

Doing dnf distrosync --releasever=37 --allowerasing worked too.

Just for good measure, I reinstalled the kernel packages dnf reinstall kernel* and I rebooted.

No more errors and it’s finally looking for package updates in the correct repos.

I hope one day Fedora will add an “o sh*t, updates broke the system. Use this to revert to the old system until we figure out what went wrong” option.

I’m happy I had the option to smack it just right in order to get things corrected, though.

Each time an update fails it seems totally unique and thus the fix is ‘try this’ then ‘try that’ until the correct sequence is identified and the problem solved.

I am glad things worked for you and the solution was relatively simple.

:clap: