18

I just had this weird problem on my PFSense VM. It neither can upgrade nor uninstall any package and is always stuck at Please wait while the update system initializes.

I tried rebooting. Still no avail. I've tried running pkg_info on PFsense cmd as mentioned by this post, but it shows sh: pkg_info: not found.

PFSense Version: 
2.4.5-RELEASE-p1 (amd64)
built on Tue Jun 02 17:51:17 EDT 2020
FreeBSD 11.3-STABLE
joween
  • 183

7 Answers7

16

Check your pfSense version. I had to update from pfSense 2.4.5_1 to pfSense 2.5.0. That solved the problem for me.

KuBand12
  • 176
  • 1
  • 3
15

I had to go to System / Update / Update Settings and set to previous stable version 2.4.5 deprecated bc I am still on 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1.

After doing that, package manger didn't show any updates for a few min and then eventually it started showing updates that were right for my branch.

Then I was able to upgrade pfBlockerNG-devel to 3.0.0_10 whereas previously it was trying to upgrade to 3.0.0_15 and just getting stuck at Please wait while the update system initializes.

TBG9000
  • 151
1

Was also running into this recently on 2.4.5 and attempted to upgrade to 2.5 as well but still hung with the same message:

Please wait while the update system initializes.

Logging into the pfsense box as admin (ssh -l admin ....) and ran this command:

$ pkg-static clean -ya
Nothing to do.

NOTE: The above is mentioned in the troubleshooting guide.

Didn't appear to do anything but when I attempted to install a package via the UI's Package Manager I now get this message:

ss1

This UI seems much slower than previously in 2.5 but after a bit of time, ~2-5min. things started to progress a bit more:

ss2

slm
  • 10,859
1

I had a version 2.4.4_r3 and wanted to upgrade to latest stable version 2.5.x but everything stalled as described initially.

The solution was

  1. upgrade to previous stable 2.4.5 DEPRECATED
  2. Wait for several minutes to have it rebooted and running again
  3. then upgrade to latest stable 2.5.2
  4. Wait for several minutes to have it rebooted and running again

Everything works fine now.

Jakob Ojvind Nielsen
  • 111
0

Just fixed the issue by installing a random package (acme, for this instance). Seems like the repo got corrupted. It's all okay now.

joween
  • 183
0

Connect to pfSense via ssh. Select 8 option to shell. Write this command: pkg-static clean -ya

It works for me.

user1270954
  • 1
0

I found that best option was to run update from console directly. Option 13) Update from console

Prior to that I did run "pkg-static clean -ya" from the shell but UI still failed to do the update.

Also in my case the update went from pfSense-kernel-pfSense: 2.4.5_1 -> 21.02_1 [pfSense-core] It took a good 10 minutes to complete reboot took forever at the end after reboot familiar line when you ssh in: *** Welcome to pfSense 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1 (amd64) on gateway *** read *** Welcome to Netgate pfSense Plus 21.02-RELEASE-p1 (amd64) on gateway ***

I am somewhat puzzled by that and will need to read/learn more but Firewall with previous fairly complicated config seemed to be back in normal working order and all updates applied.

Darek Poczobut-Potchebout
  • 1