Pt-firmware-updater.service & pt-os-updater.service buggy.. I had to disable it

#1

When working on a project, especially when the PiTop is used as a wireless standalone platform the last thing you want is to be annoyed with update alerts. What’s worse is if there’s a long pending update the OS shuts down. At least that’s what I saw in the logs:

Jan 26 11:00:48 pi-top /usr/bin/pt-firmware-updater[1846]: Logger created.
Jan 26 11:00:48 pi-top /usr/bin/pt-firmware-updater[1846]: pt4_hub - Firmware Versions: Current = 5.4, Candidate = 5.4
Jan 26 11:00:48 pi-top /usr/bin/pt-firmware-updater[1846]: pt4_hub - Candidate firmware version matches current firmware version. Checking build metadata to determine if candidate is a newer build.
Jan 26 11:00:48 pi-top /usr/bin/pt-firmware-updater[1846]: pt4_hub - Candidate firmware is not newer. Skipping…
Jan 26 11:00:48 pi-top /usr/bin/pt-firmware-updater[1846]: Skipping update: no valid candidate firmware
Jan 26 11:00:49 pi-top /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-checker[414]: Updates are already available
Jan 26 11:00:49 pi-top /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-checker[414]: Showing updates available message…
Jan 26 11:00:49 pi-top /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-checker[414]: pt-notify-send command: /usr/bin/pt-notify-send --print-id --expire-time=0 --icon=system-software-update --action=“Preview Updates:lxterminal --command=‘env SUDO_ASKPASS=/usr/lib/pt-os-u
pdater/pwdptou.sh PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 sudo -A /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-installer’ --title=‘pi-topOS Software Updater’” --action=“Update Now:lxterminal --command=‘env SUDO_ASKPASS=/usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pwdptou.sh PYTHONUNBU
FFERED=1 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 sudo -A /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-installer --force’ --title=‘pi-topOS Software Updater’” --close-action=“echo ‘pt-os-updater/view_manager.py: OS update notification not accepted by user.’ > /tmp/pt-firmware-update
r.ready” “pi-topOS Software Updater” “Updates available!”

At 11am my PiiTOP shutdown… so I disabled the updater services and problem is solved. No more random shutdowns.

#2

hi @jerrynnsr!

I see how disabling the firmware updater prevents your system from getting notifications… however, I don’t see the relation between the logs you sent and a system shutdown, can you explain a bit how you got to that conclusion?

cleaning up a bit the last few lines of the logs you sent, you get:

/usr/bin/pt-notify-send \
	--print-id \
	--expire-time=0 \
	--icon=system-software-update \
	--action="Preview Updates:lxterminal --command='env SUDO_ASKPASS=/usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pwdptou.sh PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 sudo -A /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-installer' --title='pi-topOS Software Updater'" \
	--action="Update Now:lxterminal --command='env SUDO_ASKPASS=/usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pwdptou.sh PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 sudo -A /usr/lib/pt-os-updater/pt-os-update-installer --force'  --title='pi-topOS Software Updater'" \
	--close-action="echo 'pt-os-updater/view_manager.py: OS update notification not accepted by user.' > /tmp/pt-firmware-updater.ready" "pi-topOS Software Updater" "Updates available!"

which is a command that will create a notification with 2 buttons (you can try and run it in your terminal)

#3

Sure. My Pi-Top is up 24x7 running my customized version of saytime. My PiTop apparently started to shutdown when there is a list of pending updates that I don’t respond to. I don’t want to constantly update the PiTop. I only want to update it if code that I’m writing fails because a library is out to date or a new kernel needs to be installed to support hardware that I would like use.

If you leave your Pi-Top up 24x7 with the firmware and os updater running it will shutdown. So far, with the Pi-Top firmware and os updater disabled my PiTop has not had an issue.

I came to this conclusion when I looked at the system logs and checked to see what was running before the shutdown.