---
# System prepended metadata

title: Some Fedora CoreOS nodes may fail to upgrade

---

#20200812 CoreOS Status Post for Nodes not upgrading

# Some Fedora CoreOS nodes may fail to upgrade

Hi all,

We've recently encountered two separate problems causing nodes to get stuck on an old release of Fedora CoreOS.  Both issues should primarily affect machines which have been offline for an extended period.  Nevertheless, you may wish to check whether any of your nodes are unexpectedly running a CoreOS release older than 20200715.  If so, see below for mitigation instructions.

## Details

There are two issues:

1. Due to an interaction with ostree downgrade protection, older versions of Fedora CoreOS could [fail to apply updates](https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/481) when there are [update barriers](https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/blob/master/metadata/updates/specifications.md#glossary) in the update graph.  We [applied a server-side workaround](https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/481#issuecomment-630196389) for several releases after the bug was fixed, but some nodes that were offline during that period will not successfully update to current releases.
2. In April we began migrating the Cincinnati update service from the Fedora staging cluster at updates.coreos.stg.fedoraproject.org to the production cluster at updates.coreos.fedoraproject.org.  The staging cluster was removed from service as part of the [Fedora datacenter move](https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/L3MAYSUM52C4G6PFVDZ6SEFKHCHGUUZS/), and there are [no short-term plans](https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/infrastructure@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/OSWUJ5MH5KIHDVDWVBCNLKU55PSLUUQ3/) to restore it.  Any nodes that have not updated since the migration will fail to update to current releases.

## Mitigation

If you have nodes affected by either problem, the following commands should correct the issue:

```
sudo tee /run/zincati/config.d/99-fixes.toml << EOF
[cincinnati]
base_url = "https://updates.coreos.fedoraproject.org"
# https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/481#issuecomment-653011069
[updates]
allow_downgrade = true
EOF

sudo systemctl restart zincati.service
```

This procedure does not make any persistent configuration changes to the system, so no further action is necessary after the node updates.

If you have any questions, you can connect with us on the [CoreOS mailing list](https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/coreos@lists.fedoraproject.org/), [Fedora Discourse](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/c/server/coreos), or #fedora-coreos on Freenode.

Thanks,
--Benjamin Gilbert
