fwupd-refresh.service failed

Question

I have VPS, and after checking systemctl, I noticed that my fwupd-refresh.service failed.

Can you explain the problem, and could you help to fix it?

Solution 1

In some cases this error can be safely ignored. fwupd-refresh.service just executes /usr/bin/fwupdmgr refresh command and treats exit status 2 as success (see last 2 lines of fwupd-refresh.service). But fwupdmgr can also successfully exit with status 0, which will be wrongfully interpreted by systemd as an error.

• systemctl cat fwupd-refresh:

  # /lib/systemd/system/fwupd-refresh.service
  [Unit]
  Description=Refresh fwupd metadata and update motd
  Documentation=man:fwupdmgr(1)
  After=network.target
  
  [Service]
  Type=oneshot
  CacheDirectory=fwupdmgr
  StandardError=null
  DynamicUser=yes
  RestrictAddressFamilies=AF_NETLINK AF_UNIX AF_INET AF_INET6
  SystemCallFilter=~@mount
  ProtectKernelModules=yes
  ProtectControlGroups=yes
  RestrictRealtime=yes
  SuccessExitStatus=2
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/fwupdmgr refresh
  

• sudo /usr/bin/fwupdmgr refresh:

  ...
  Successfully downloaded new metadata: 0 local devices supported
  

• echo $?: 0

• man fwupdmgr:

  EXIT STATUS
        Commands that successfully execute will return "0", but commands that have no actions but successfully execute will return "2".
  

Solution 2

fwupd-refresh.service Loaded: masked

A service that is masked is disabled and can't be activated by an other unit (timers, targets, services...) that needs it or manually. It's the stronger version of disabling a service.

fwupd-refresh.timer: ...failed...unit fwupd-refresh is masked.

To change this:

sudo systemctl unmask fwupd-refresh

Then this:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl start fwupd-refresh.service
systemctl list-units --failed

If fwupd-refresh is listed as failed then:

Uncomment #DynamicUser=yes in /lib/systemd/system/fwupd-refresh.service

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.exec.html#DynamicUser=

Comments

[Admin]

Any idea why I'd get the following after /usr/bin/fwupdmgr refresh: Failed to connect to daemon: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.fwupd: Timeout was reached

[Admin]

@MikeCiffone no, but these might be relevant: github.com/fwupd/fwupd/issues/1805 github.com/fwupd/fwupd/issues/4242

[Admin]

For anyone that experiences that timeout error: apt upgrade fwupd.service followed by /usr/bin/fwupdmgr refresh resolved it.