Debian upgrade "task failed successfully"

User Support General
1

Hello

I’m trying to upgrade Debian template, from 12 to 13, using this:

Everything went through without any problems or errors - I have a new Debian-13-xfce template in Qube Manager, but next to the new template is a warning message “ this cube is based on a distribution that is no longer supported. Install new template with Template Manager”. There are no updates available for this cube. So, apparently something went wrong. I’d love any ideas what may have happened.

EDIT: I ran the whole process again (no errors), what I found strange: after cloning, there is nothing to update or upgrade; there was no prompt for overwriting qubes-r4.list file, and after running sudo apt-dist upgrade, again, there was nothing to install or upgrade.

2

If I had to guess, you may have skipped a step, similar to Qubes Update icon wont go off even if i have upgraded debian (StandaloneVM) from 12 to 13 · Issue #10935 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub

3

Unless the template is customized, wouldn’t it be simpler to install the new template using qvm-template?

4

I have not skipped anything. Also, the internal upgrade from 12 to 13 should have taken place (if I’m not mistaken) around step 3/4. And it does not; 0 packages upgraded, installed or removed.

5

I still dont get why you want to UPGRADE that template instead of installing a new one - so at the end you have debian-12-xfce and debian-13-xfce, and then you can flip the template in your appvms.

Did I miss something?

6

Because this template is customized, and it would probably take half a day to set up.

7

Please post the outputs of:

cat /etc/os-release in your new Debian VM

cat /etc/apt/sources.list in that same VM

qvm-features VMNAME | grep template-name in dom0, replacing VMNAME with your new Debian template’s name.

I still dont get why you want to UPGRADE that template instead of installing a new one - so at the end you have debian-12-xfce and debian-13-xfce, and then you can flip the template in your appvms.

Personally, with how much I use qubes, I didn’t find reinstalling templates a viable option. With the amount of customization I apply to my templates, I used to always upgrade, as this took way less time. Now that I’ve switched to Ansible I always reinstall, but that’s not easy to set up.

8

user@debian-13-xfce:~$ cat /etc/os-release

PRETTY_NAME=”Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)”

user@debian-13-xfce:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list

deb Index of /debian bookworm main contrib non-free-formware

#deb-src Index of /debian bookworm main contrib non-free-firmware

9

Your sources are still on Debian 12.

Did you execute

sudo sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/qubes-r4.list

on the new template? That’s step 4 of the instructions.

10

Apparently my stupidity has no bounds;

I did execute sudo sed -i, but with template name and not debian release name…….

Now it works. Thank You for the help