Bug 476396 - Discover: "The PackageKit daemon has crashed" when updating a Flatpak
Summary: Discover: "The PackageKit daemon has crashed" when updating a Flatpak
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: neon
Classification: KDE Neon
Component: Packages User Edition (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: unspecified
Platform: Neon Linux
: NOR crash
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Neon Bugs
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2023-11-01 08:21 UTC by Malte S. Stretz
Modified: 2025-09-23 12:37 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
Output of journalctl --boot | grep -i packagekit (26.14 KB, text/plain)
2023-11-01 08:24 UTC, Malte S. Stretz
Details
Output of journalctl --boot -t systemd-coredump (14.62 KB, text/plain)
2023-11-01 08:27 UTC, Malte S. Stretz
Details
Screenshot (181.05 KB, image/png)
2023-11-01 08:28 UTC, Malte S. Stretz
Details

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Description Malte S. Stretz 2023-11-01 08:21:09 UTC
SUMMARY

After a recent Neon 5.27 package update (maybe a month or so ago) Discover started to throw up a dialog telling me "The PackageKit daemon has crashed" (cf. attached screenshot).

This was reported to Discover a few times already but always closed as "please tell your Distro". Well, Neon is my distro, here you go. I actually doubt that this is a distro related issue since 
(a) it was reported for various distros (including Neon)
(b) it started happening only after some KDE Neon package update (there might have been a PackageKit update involved though)

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
This is the way it happens to me:
1. Be notified about updates
2. Open Discover
3. Deselect the Neon packages, keep only the Flatpak updates
4. Press Apply or whatever that button is labeled with
5. A dialog will pop up telling you PackageKit has crashed
6. The Flatpak updates will actually suceed. At least it looks like that.

OBSERVED RESULT
A dialog "The PackageKit daemon has crashed" pops up

EXPECTED RESULT
No such dialog

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: Neon User Edition 5.27
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.9
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.111.0
Qt Version: 5.15.11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

coredumpctl says:

TIME                          PID UID GID SIG     COREFILE     EXE                      SIZE
Mon 2023-10-30 13:22:59 CET  9575   0   0 SIGABRT inaccessible /usr/libexec/packagekitd  n/a
Mon 2023-10-30 13:23:00 CET 10331   0   0 SIGABRT inaccessible /usr/libexec/packagekitd  n/a
Mon 2023-10-30 14:02:58 CET 12922   0   0 SIGABRT inaccessible /usr/libexec/packagekitd  n/a
Wed 2023-11-01 09:01:55 CET  1656   0   0 SIGABRT inaccessible /usr/libexec/packagekitd  n/a
Comment 1 Malte S. Stretz 2023-11-01 08:24:29 UTC
Created attachment 162786 [details]
Output of journalctl --boot | grep -i packagekit
Comment 2 Malte S. Stretz 2023-11-01 08:27:55 UTC
Created attachment 162787 [details]
Output of journalctl --boot -t systemd-coredump
Comment 3 Malte S. Stretz 2023-11-01 08:28:11 UTC
Created attachment 162788 [details]
Screenshot
Comment 4 Malte S. Stretz 2023-11-01 08:32:02 UTC
It looks like this is a PackageKit bug indeed. Here is the Debian bug which resulted in this upstream fix which should then be backported for Neon (or maybe Discover should work around it):
* https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1054026
* https://github.com/PackageKit/PackageKit/issues/656
Comment 5 Malte S. Stretz 2023-11-01 09:09:40 UTC
I can reproduce this reliably by downgrading the zoom flatpak and updating it again.
Comment 6 Dimitri 2023-11-29 11:57:36 UTC
I can confirm that I really often have this issue since quite a time. I don't like updating everything at the same time and most of my software are Flatpacks. (I'm also on KDE neon 5.27.9 and update through Discover.)
Comment 7 Carlos De Maine 2025-09-20 09:36:11 UTC
Thank you for your bug report! 
However this bug report was created/provided previous to 01/01/2023 and also has not received any updates since  before 01/01/2025. 
Unfortunately KDE neon no longer provides updates for anything older than noble 24.04 based edition's.
Please upgrade to KDE neon noble and if you can reproduce the issue after upgrading to an active version, feel free to re-open this bug report.
Thanks for understanding!
Comment 8 Dimitri 2025-09-23 12:37:46 UTC
This issue has been fixed a while ago.

(Current fixed state :)
Discover 6.4.5
Operating System: KDE neon User Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.18.0
Qt Version: 6.9.2
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-29-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland