Major Issues after "OS Update" on Librem 5

Hardware Librem 5
33

@dos Thanks for the info.

João Fonseca in support who was helping me initially suggested connecting an external keyboard and pushing ctrl + alt + F3. I did that, and it drops me back to a tty.

I’m then asked to ender my Purism login (I entered my encryption pass and then it asked for a password. And, came back with incorrect login details

Can you please advise where or how I find my purism login and what password do I use?

I’m going out again in 10 minutes for the rest of my afternoon, so hopefully will be able to have this issue sorted when I get home,

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34

So to elaborate on that one:

  1. If you had SSH access configured, it should be easy - WiFi should still work, and you should be able to ssh to your phone as usual in order to perform the recovery.
  2. If you had no SSH access configured, but you have a USB keyboard around, you can plug it in (either via hub or USB-A to C adapter) and press Ctrl+Alt+F2. You should then see a login screen where you can login (login: purism; password: your password used on the lockscreen) and perform the recovery from there.
  3. If you have neither SSH access nor USB keyboard, you can use Jumpdrive to access your phone’s system partition. Then edit the file usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/phosh.session and change sm.puri.OSK0 to sm.puri.Squeekboard (be careful not to change anything else, like the punctuation around). This should let your phone boot to graphical (although degraded) session and let you perform recovery steps in the regular terminal app.

Unfortunately. connection over USB won’t work. Both serial over USB and Ethernet over USB is configured by packages from librem5-base, which got removed, so no USB gadget gets exposed.

Once you have access to the phone’s shell, in order to recover your system to a fully working state do:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install librem5-gnome

In case it fails to resolve the dependencies (and only then!), do this instead:

sudo apt install librem5-gnome linux-image-librem5/byzantium linux-image-6.3.0-1-librem5-

This should bring your phone back to its feet without having to reflash. Just make sure not to update with PureOS Store again until the issue is resolved.

10 Likes
35

The problem is solved now, updates should be safe again. Remember to refresh the package lists before attempting to upgrade from PureOS Store in case the old broken ones got already cached!

We already have changes coming that should prevent this from happening in the future.

7 Likes
36

Thanks 0xd05

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37

A month ago I had this same problem occur on my L5. I worked with Joao, and after a lot of back and forth, the only option was to reflash. phone was working great for a couple of weeks until today. Thanks @dos for your help.

Fortunately for me, I setup ssh. But, also, if people have the hoyoki dock, that was a way for me to connect a keyboard to the phone. So, think of that as an alternative way to connect the phone.

This is frustrating, but it is nice to also have a community to support. It is just unnerving for me to switch to the L5 as a daily driver if these types of problems occur.

But, I will say, follow the Purism advice for backups. That did save me when I had to reflash. I recovered all of my phone call history, contacts, chats, etc.

One other note- when I reflashed, the L5 performance was remarkably faster?! And, it had a much smaller footprint on disk also?! Why is this? Does anyone know. After the reflash, everything on the L5 worked so much better, cleaner, faster, etc. wifi connections, vpn, restore from suspend, even firefox performance?

My take away from the reflash experience, is the default image purism is sending out with new deliveries, is not the same as the reflash image? If so, that means, everyone should do a reflash as soon as they get their L5 from purism? I got mine in Oct 2022. Maybe the OS image is different today that gets shipped on new L5’s?

2 Likes
38

I would advise just about everyone to set up ssh. You don’t need it until you do.

Like any computer, doing backups is a good idea.

Fewer package updates cached?

You weren’t cleaning out your journals? https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Tips%20&%20Tricks#managing-journals

You didn’t reinstall everything after that reflash that you previously had installed?

1 Like
39

I ran into the issue of this thread as well. As a side note:
ssh-ing into the Librem 5 did not work for a few times. I used:

ssh purism@l5name.local

Several times I got:

ssh: Could not resolve hostname l5name.local: Name or service not known

But I kept trying and after a few reboots of the Librem 5 it worked.

I’m writing this so that other people with the same issue should not give up to quickly if getting ssh access does not work immediately. Give it a few more tries.

After having ssh access the apt instructions for fixing worked. Thanks @dos!

1 Like
40

Suggested alternatives:

  • Configure static mappings of MAC address to IP address in your DHCP server, or
  • Examine the information in your DHCP server

to determine what IP address has been assigned to the Librem 5, and use

ssh purism@theipaddress

instead.

2 Likes
41

If someone takes the time to find out whether the decision how to resolve the conflict had been forced by Gnome Software or PackageKit I’d be interested to read that :slight_smile: .

I already stumbled over problems with PackageKit a while ago and took this as a reason to publish what I found (and what didn’t get fixed in PureOS, yet), also.

3 Likes
42

@dos, I attached the external keyboard and did the first command you suggested, but it fails to resolve the dependencies, so I did this command as you directed . . .

However, the output of that command was:

E: Unable to locate package linux-image-6.3.0.1-librem5
E: Couldn’t find any package by glob ‘linux-image-6.3.0.1-librem5’

I tipple checked I copied the commands you posted above correctly before hitting enter, and then waited a few minutes after the errors showed up, rebooted, and when the phone still didn’t go past the encryption password, I did the second command again, with the same errors.

Do you have any other suggestions before I reflash, as I only have use of one hand and find it difficult to do some of the steps (where two hands are required) of the reflash procedure?

1 Like
43

That’s interesting, as this would mean that your problem isn’t related to this update. You can try sudo apt install librem5-gnome linux-image-librem5/byzantium as well.

However, at this point just sudo apt install librem5-gnome should work. What exactly are the dependencies it failed to resolve?

1 Like
44

@dos: I never use the store; with apt ... I see now:

sudo apt update
apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
librem5-base-defaults/byzantium-updates 62pureos1 all [upgradable from: 61pureos1]
librem5-base/byzantium-updates 62pureos1 all [upgradable from: 61pureos1]
librem5-gnome-base/byzantium-updates 62pureos1 all [upgradable from: 61pureos1]
librem5-gnome-phone/byzantium-updates 62pureos1 all [upgradable from: 61pureos1]
librem5-gnome/byzantium-updates 62pureos1 all [upgradable from: 61pureos1]
librem5-non-gnome/byzantium-updates 62pureos1 all [upgradable from: 61pureos1]
linux-image-librem5/byzantium-updates 6.3.7pureos3~byz1 arm64 [upgradable from: 6.2.13pureos3]
linux-libc-dev/byzantium-updates 6.3.7pureos3~byz1 arm64 [upgradable from: 6.2.13pureos3]
phoc/byzantium-updates 0.29.0+ds-1pureos1~byz1 arm64 [upgradable from: 0.28.0+ds-1pureos1]

Is this the expected set and should I proceed with sudo apt full-upgrade ?

1 Like
45

Hey dos,
Thanks a bundle for the guidance on this. I ran out (well, to be honest I drove) to the thrift shop earlier to buy a usb keyboard, plugged it into my hub (an earlier thrift shop find), and started hammering on the ctrl, alt and f2 keys like mad.
And it worked! The upgrade succeeded, and all my finetunings (squeekboard layout, color settings, desktop apps, etcetera) were still there.
Heck, I even have the Librem5 Tour back!

For a moment there I thought my love affair with the L5 had to come to an end. But it behaving like a real linux computer in this situation prevented that.

Great! Thanks again, dos!

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46

The Store now wants to upgrade to phosh 29. Is that save? :slight_smile:

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47

(I think it is.)

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48

Looks sensible.

There’s no phosh 0.29 in byzantium yet, so you must have enabled some development repos which are never “safe”.

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49

Really?! I do not recall doing so. Strange!
The store indeed says that the (flatpak) PureOS beta repository is active. I can be mistaken, but I am pretty sure I did not add that myself.

Nothing experimental in the Byzantium section, though.

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50

So two questions:

  1. Is it really phosh, and not phoc?
  2. Which repositories are enabled in the “Packages” section?
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51

Ah, yes. You might be right. It could be phoc. How can I check that?

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52

I don’t know what “that” means in this question. It’s you who told me it was phosh, I don’t know where have you seen it :stuck_out_tongue:

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