RPi 3B+ update issue (trying latest 9.10 ported me back to 9.7.1?)

gthreepwood · February 11, 2025, 10:04am

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched via Google, Forum and existing open and closed issues

Required Information

DietPi version | cat /boot/dietpi/.version
G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=7
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1
G_GITBRANCH=‘master’
G_GITOWNER=‘MichaIng’
Distro version | echo $G_DISTRO_NAME $G_RASPBIAN
bookworm 0
Kernel version | uname --all
Linux DietPi 6.1.21-v8+ #1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr 3 17:24:16 BST 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux
Architecture | dpkg --print-architecture
arm64
SBC model | echo $G_HW_MODEL_NAME or (EG: RPi3)
RPi 3 Model B+ (aarch64)
Power supply used | (EG: 5V 1A RAVpower)
Original Raspberry
SD card used | (EG: SanDisk ultra)
SanDisk ultra

Additional Information (if applicable)

Software title | (EG: Nextcloud)
Was the software title installed freshly or updated/migrated?
Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi?
← If you sent a “dietpi-bugreport”, please paste the ID here →
Bug report ID | echo $G_HW_UUID
c1a95f31-af74-4003-ab1b-631f2eda6d96

I regularly update my Raspi and this week I found v9.10 to be offered. I tried to update as usual but was asked if I wanted to also do a RPi kernel/firmware migration. I continued with “yes” but only found my system being teleported back to v9.7.1. I didn’t spot an error right away, despite there was no final “update successful, please reboot” confirmation wizard or anything.

I decided to reboot and v9.10 was announced again. I retried, this time selected to do the kernel/firmware migration later. Everything seemed to go through smoothly but in the end the unit seems to stay on v9.7.1.
As I said I regularly update, I’m sure I ran v9.9 before…

Thanks everyone for your help

 DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Installing new DietPi code

[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Downloading update archive
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Unpacking update archive
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Removing unused files
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Hardening update archive mode
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Installing new DietPi scripts
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Installing new DietPi system files
[ SUB1 ] DietPi-Set_software > verify_dietpi.txt
[  OK  ] DietPi-Set_software | Downloading current dietpi.txt
[  OK  ] verify_dietpi.txt  | Completed
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | sync
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | systemctl daemon-reload

 DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Applying incremental patches

[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Current version : v9.7.1
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Latest version  : v9.10.0
[ INFO ] DietPi-Patch | Patching to DietPi v9.8...
[  OK  ] DietPi-Patch | Patched to DietPi v9.8
[ INFO ] DietPi-Patch | Patching to DietPi v9.9...
[  OK  ] DietPi-Patch | Patched to DietPi v9.9
[ INFO ] DietPi-Patch | Patching to DietPi v9.10...
[  OK  ] DietPi-Patch | Patched to DietPi v9.10
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | APT autopurge, please wait...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | APT autopurge
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | systemctl daemon-reload
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Incremental patching to v9.10.0 completed
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Checking for new available live patches
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Added setting G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[0]='not applied' to end of file /boot/dietpi/.version
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Applying live patch 0: Fix Roon Bridge download URL. Relevant only if you plan to install or update Roon Bridge
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | Setting in /boot/dietpi/.version adjusted: G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[0]='applied'

 DietPi-Update
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Phase: Completed

[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Current version : v9.10.0
[ INFO ] DietPi-Update | Latest version  : v9.10.0
[  OK  ] DietPi-Survey | Purging survey data
[  OK  ] DietPi-Update | sync
[ SUB1 ] DietPi-Services > restart
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | restart : php8.2-fpm
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | restart : lighttpd
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | restart : cron

gthreepwood · February 11, 2025, 10:06am

Joulinar · February 11, 2025, 11:17am

that sounds like 2 different boot partitions. can you share following

df -h
lsblk -o name,fstype,label,size,ro,type,mountpoint,partuuid,uuid

gthreepwood · February 11, 2025, 11:58am

root@DietPi:~# df -h
lsblk -o name,fstype,label,size,ro,type,mountpoint,partuuid,uuid
Dateisystem    Größe Benutzt Verf. Verw% Eingehängt auf
/dev/root       7,1G    2,1G  4,8G   31% /
devtmpfs        446M       0  446M    0% /dev
tmpfs           480M     13M  468M    3% /dev/shm
tmpfs           192M    3,3M  189M    2% /run
tmpfs           5,0M       0  5,0M    0% /run/lock
tmpfs           1,0G       0  1,0G    0% /tmp
tmpfs            50M     28K   50M    1% /var/log
/dev/mmcblk0p1  127M     33M   95M   26% /boot
NAME FSTYPE LABEL  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT PARTUUID                             UUID
mmcblk0
                   7,4G  0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1
│    vfat          128M  0 part /boot      e68d129d-01                          2107-94F5
└─mmcblk0p2
     ext4          7,2G  0 part /          e68d129d-02                          7608aca8-b705-4e32-ad0f-61fbb7a1b0d7
root@DietPi:~#

gthreepwood · February 11, 2025, 12:17pm

incredible, issue was gone after I logged in again. Console showed v9.10 is installed.

But I felt too lucky and went to dietpi-config to migrate the kernel which after reboot put me back onto v9.7.1

gthreepwood · February 11, 2025, 12:54pm

so I can follow your assumption with the system booting to some old OS state.
I can update to v9.10 successfully and can verify it’s update. Also when reconnecting the intro banner would show my sys is on v9.10. But after a reboot it’s v9.7.1 again…

Joulinar · February 11, 2025, 4:41pm

ok is see the SC card only. No further storage device

let’s try following

reboot
cat /boot/dietpi/.version
uname -a
dietpi-update 1 #don't do the kernel migration
reboot
cat /boot/dietpi/.version
uname -a

gthreepwood · February 12, 2025, 9:57am

Thank you for bringing up ideas. Really appreciated!

>root@DietPi:~# cat /boot/dietpi/.version
G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=7
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1
G_GITBRANCH='master'
G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'

root@DietPi:~# uname -a
Linux DietPi 6.1.21-v8+ #1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr  3 17:24:16 BST 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux

ran dietpi-update 1 #don't do the kernel migration and selected to NOT migrate the kernel
rebooted

…

root@DietPi:~# cat /boot/dietpi/.version
G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=7
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1
G_GITBRANCH='master'
G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'

root@DietPi:~# uname -a
Linux DietPi 6.1.21-v8+ #1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr  3 17:24:16 BST 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux

Joulinar · February 12, 2025, 10:10am

ok one step missed

can you run the dietpi-update again and check content of /boot/dietpi/.version right after?

gthreepwood · February 12, 2025, 10:51am

sure. so far so good. If only the reboot wouldn’t make it forget all about it

root@DietPi:~# cat /boot/dietpi/.version
G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=10
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=0
G_GITBRANCH='master'
G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'
G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[0]='applied'
root@DietPi:~#

Joulinar · February 12, 2025, 11:01am

Strangely, /boot does not seem to store the information permanently. I have only seen this before when there were different boot partitions. But this is not the case here, as there is only the SD card.

To test this, please create the following demo file and see if it still exists after the reboot.

touch /boot/demo.file
ls -la /boot/demo.file

reboot and check again

ls -la /boot/demo.file

gthreepwood · February 12, 2025, 11:41am

yes indeed…

root@DietPi:~# touch /boot/demo.file
root@DietPi:~# ls -la /boot/demo.file
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 12. Feb 12:38 /boot/demo.file

root@DietPi:~# ls -la /boot/demo.file
ls: Zugriff auf '/boot/demo.file' nicht möglich: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

Translates to "Access to ‘/boot/demo.file’ not possible. File or Directory not found

Joulinar · February 12, 2025, 12:08pm

can you try recreating the demo file, switching off the device (not rebooting), removing the SD card from the RPI and checking the contents on a desktop computer? Since /boot is a vfat file system, it should be readable on Windows.

gthreepwood · February 12, 2025, 1:38pm

I just tried as suggested. Found only the small 128MB FAT32 is readable…

Joulinar · February 12, 2025, 2:28pm

yes that’s the correct partition. But I don’t see the demo file. So it’s already gone on poweroff.

Can you create a test file on Windows? Once done place the SD card back and check if its available?

ls -la /boot

gthreepwood · February 12, 2025, 2:32pm

Will try next. Meanwhile I thought about checking with fsck

root@DietPi:~# df -h
Dateisystem    Größe Benutzt Verf. Verw% Eingehängt auf
/dev/root       7,1G    2,1G  4,8G   30% /
devtmpfs        446M       0  446M    0% /dev
tmpfs           480M     13M  468M    3% /dev/shm
tmpfs           192M    3,3M  189M    2% /run
tmpfs           5,0M       0  5,0M    0% /run/lock
tmpfs           1,0G       0  1,0G    0% /tmp
tmpfs            50M    4,0K   50M    1% /var/log
/dev/mmcblk0p1  127M     33M   95M   26% /boot

root@DietPi:~# sudo umount /dev/mmcblk0p1

root@DietPi:~# sudo fsck /dev/mmcblk0p1
fsck from util-linux 2.38.1
fsck.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
This is mostly harmless. Differences: (offset:original/backup)
  65:01/00
1) Copy original to backup
2) Copy backup to original
3) No action

Unsure what to do here. Flip a coin maybe.

Joulinar · February 12, 2025, 2:41pm

maybe @MichaIng has an idea how this could happen. At least I’m running out of ideas. Btw, I have the very same message for fsck on my RPI4 and it’s running without issue.

gthreepwood · February 14, 2025, 12:52pm

So I assume it’s the SD Card dying. I put it into my Windows PC and did the simple test again, created a file, safe ejected the card, put it back in, the new file isn’t present.
Nevermind, I’ll set up a new card and copy anything meaningful.
Thank you for your support though.

Joulinar · February 14, 2025, 1:22pm

I’m sorry to hear that. Hopefully it will work with the new SD card