Fedora 21: problems with offline updates, other PackageKit stuff

Hey, you! Yes, you! Are you having problems with software updates in Fedora 21? Mysterious errors from GNOME Software or Apper? Well, ask your pharmacist today about new Updatrex™...

no, wait, that's not it. Ahem.

Since the middle of last week we've been aware of some bugs with the PackageKit stack. The initial bug report was for offline updates failing, but during testing of the fix for that, various other bugs were identified which could potentially cause problems with many PackageKit transactions - that's mostly documented in this report. Mostly, though, folks only seem to have been noticing issues since libhif 0.1.7 came out as an update in late December.

Richard Hughes has been working hard to fix the problems, and we now have an update in updates-testing which we're fairly confident should fix all the known bugs in this area. Note: if you're seeing the error SearchGroups not supported by backend from Apper, that's a different issue, not covered by this post.

Until the update gets an advisory ID, you can install it like this:

# mkdir /tmp/updtmp
# cd /tmp/updtmp
# yum install bodhi-client
# bodhi -D PackageKit-1.0.4-1.fc21
# yum update *.rpm
# systemctl restart packagekit.service

For most folks simply installing the update should resolve any problems, but if you were unfortunate, you may also need to reboot your system, run:

# pkcon repair

and reboot again. That should resolve any problems with offline updates and other PackageKit operations.

And of course, if the effects of Updatrex™ persist for more than four hours, consult your physician immediately.