Solved Cloudron update from 7.2.5 to 7.3.4 not working

[msbt]

The rest of my Cloudrons updated fine, but this one does not and I can't figure out why. It's a standard Hetzner Ubuntu 20.04 machine (same as the others) and as soon as I click on the "Update Available" button in the settings view and then on update (doesn't matter if I enable backups or not), it just doesn't go through with it and the modal popup disappears without installing anything.

Box log shows this:

Dec 07 08:35:18 box:locker Acquired : box_update
Dec 07 08:35:18 box:tasks startTask - starting task 5877 with options {"timeout":72000000,"nice":15,"memoryLimit":800}. logs at /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/tasks/5877.log
Dec 07 08:35:18 box:shell startTask spawn: /usr/bin/sudo -S -E /home/yellowtent/box/src/scripts/starttask.sh 5877 /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/tasks/5877.log 15 800
Dec 07 08:35:18 box:shell startTask (stdout): Running as unit: box-task-5877.service
Dec 07 08:35:20 box:apphealthmonitor app health: 2 alive / 0 dead.
Dec 07 08:35:24 box:shell startTask (stdout): Finished with result: exit-code
processes terminated with: code=exited/status=50
runtime: 5.856s
Dec 07 08:35:24 box:shell startTask code: 50, signal: null
Dec 07 08:35:24 box:tasks startTask: 5877 completed with code 50 and signal null
Dec 07 08:35:24 box:locker Released : box_update
Dec 07 08:35:24 box:updater Update failed with error {
stack: 'BoxError: update exited with code 1 signal null\n' +
' at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/yellowtent/box/src/shell.js:78:17)\n' +
' at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:526:28)\n' +
' at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:291:12)',
name: 'BoxError',
reason: 'Spawn Error',
details: {},
message: 'update exited with code 1 signal null',
code: 1,
signal: null
Dec 07 08:35:24 box:tasks startTask: 5877 done. error: [object Object]

Task log shows this:

2022-12-06T19:35:24.392Z box:shell update (stdout): => Run installer.sh as cloudron-updater.

2022-12-06T19:35:24.397Z box:shell update (stdout): => starting service (ubuntu 18.04) cloudron-updater. see logs at /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/updater/cloudron-updater-2022-12-06_19-35-24.log

2022-12-06T19:35:24.404Z box:shell update (stdout): ^[[0;1;31mFailed to start transient service unit: Unit cloudron-updater.service already exists.^[[0m

2022-12-06T19:35:24.404Z box:shell update (stdout): Failed to install cloudron. See log for details

2022-12-06T19:35:24.405Z box:shell update code: 1, signal: null
2022-12-06T19:35:24.406Z box:taskworker Task took 5.086 seconds
2022-12-06T19:35:24.406Z box:tasks setCompleted - 5877: {"result":null,"error":{"stack":"BoxError: update exited with code 1 signal null\n    at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/yellowtent/box/src/shell>
2022-12-06T19:35:24.407Z box:tasks update 5877: {"percent":100,"result":null,"error":{"stack":"BoxError: update exited with code 1 signal null\n    at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/yellowtent/box/src>
BoxError: update exited with code 1 signal null
    at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/yellowtent/box/src/shell.js:78:17)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:526:28)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:291:12)

The /home/yellowtent/platformdata/logs/updater/cloudron-updater-2022-12-06_19-35-24.log doesn't exist (yet?), but there's a growing cloudron-updater-2022-12-05_23-02-32.log from the last attempt which has 1.3gb already and is still going which contains a loop of this (not sure which is the beginning or the end):

GRUB install devices:
Use of uninitialized value $_[1] in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 111.
You chose not to install GRUB to any devices. If you continue, the boot loader
may not be properly configured, and when this computer next starts up it will
use whatever was previously configured. If there is an earlier version of GRUB 2
in the EFI system partition, it may be unable to load modules or handle the
current configuration file.

If you are already using a different boot loader and want to carry on doing so,
or if this is a special environment where you do not need a boot loader, then
you should continue anyway. Otherwise, you should install GRUB somewhere.

Continue without installing GRUB? [yes/no]
Use of uninitialized value $_[1] in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 111.
The GRUB boot loader was previously installed to a disk that is no longer
present, or whose unique identifier has changed for some reason. It is important
to make sure that the installed GRUB core image stays in sync with GRUB modules
and grub.cfg. Please check again to make sure that GRUB is written to the
appropriate boot devices.

  1. /dev/sda15 (63 MB; /boot/efi) on 40961 MB QEMU_HARDDISK

(Enter the items you want to select, separated by spaces.)

Which is a bit odd, because I'm pretty sure that there was no modification of the grub loader, this is supposed to be a stock Ubuntu image.

I didn't try restarting, thought would be better to debug

[girish]

@msbt Looks like dpkg is not working because apt is some strange stage. Can you try dpkg --configure -a ? Maybe you installed something or changed something kernel/grub related ?

[Neluser]

@girish Hi, I have the same problem with "perpetual update". I also have a Hetzner Ubuntu 20.04 machine. (But I upgraded Ubuntu according to the instructions from 18>>20 , almost a year ago.)

I used the dpkg --configure -a command. and that seems to have fixed the problem. (hope so )

My log
(Enter the items you want to select, separated by spaces.)

GRUB install devices: 
Use of uninitialized value $_[1] in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 111.
You chose not to install GRUB to any devices. If you continue, the boot loader 
may not be properly configured, and when this computer next starts up it will 
use whatever was previously configured. If there is an earlier version of GRUB 2
in the EFI system partition, it may be unable to load modules or handle the 
current configuration file.

If you are already using a different boot loader and want to carry on doing so, 
or if this is a special environment where you do not need a boot loader, then 
you should continue anyway. Otherwise, you should install GRUB somewhere.

Continue without installing GRUB? [yes/no] 
Use of uninitialized value $_[1] in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 111.
The GRUB boot loader was previously installed to a disk that is no longer 
present, or whose unique identifier has changed for some reason. It is important
to make sure that the installed GRUB core image stays in sync with GRUB modules 
and grub.cfg. Please check again to make sure that GRUB is written to the 
appropriate boot devices.

  1. /dev/sda15 (63 MB; /boot/efi) on 40961 MB QEMU_HARDDISK

(Enter the items you want to select, separated by spaces.)

GRUB install devices: 
Use of uninitialized value $_[1] in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 111.
You chose not to install GRUB to any devices. If you continue, the boot loader 
may not be properly configured, and when this computer next starts up it will 
use whatever was previously configured. If

[msbt]

@girish I didn't install anything, but I might have upgraded from 18 to 20 at some point as well as @Neluser did.

dpkg --configure -a resulted in dpkg: error: dpkg frontend lock is locked by another process, so I restarted the machine after all and updating worked fine.

Before that I killed the dpkg process and tried to run it, which resulted in that:

dpkg --configure -a
Setting up grub-efi-amd64-signed (1.173.2~20.04.1+2.04-1ubuntu47.4) ...
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
dpkg: error processing package grub-efi-amd64-signed (--configure):
 installed grub-efi-amd64-signed package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent processing triggers for shim-signed:
 shim-signed depends on grub-efi-amd64-signed | grub-efi-arm64-signed; however:
  Package grub-efi-amd64-signed is not configured yet.
  Package grub-efi-arm64-signed is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package shim-signed (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
Errors were encountered while processing:
 grub-efi-amd64-signed
 shim-signed

Either way, solved not in the most elegant way, but solved