Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

PonJar · 2020-04-24 08:47:55

I have come across an issue with timeshift after my latest system upgrade. Both automated and manually initiated snapshots do not complete and remain stuck at high cpu load. The snapshot appears to have been created by looking in /timeshift/snapshots/ but does not appear in the gui. top shows two rsync tasks running at high cpu indefinitely.

I have done some testing of this problem having rolled back to a working snapshot. On the basis that a recent update has caused this problem I checked the version numbers for the timeshift dependencies listed on the AUR. Three were not at the latest versions. I updated each one individually and checked that timeshift still worked as expected after each update. No issues were found. Finally I did a fully system update which unfortunately recreated the problem.

I have raised an issue here:

https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues/591

Another Arch user seems to have similar problems:

https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues/590

Not sure what else I can do to solve this

Last edited by PonJar (2020-04-30 17:38:30)

Lone_Wolf · 2020-04-24 11:03:48

I checked the version numbers for the timeshift dependencies listed on the AUR. Three were not at the latest versions.

I see only one aur dependency listed on https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/timeshift .
It's gksu and an optional dependency.

Which other dependencies did you have to update ?

PonJar · 2020-04-24 11:34:10

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Which other dependencies did you have to update ?

The packages not at their latest versions were:

Package Installed version Latest version Latest date

gtk3    1:3.24.17-1    1:3.24.18-1    2020-04-10
xapps 1.6.10-1    1.8.0-1    2020-04-24
vala (make) 0.48.3-1    0.48.5-1    2020-04-23

However timeshift still worked after updating these 3 packages.

The issue arose again after a subsequent system update (sudo pacman -Syu)

Lone_Wolf · 2020-04-24 11:47:26

However timeshift still worked after updating these 3 packages.

That almost sounds like you performed a partial update for those repo packages instead of running pacman -Syu .

Post your /var/log/pacman.log please. ( use a pastebin client )

PonJar · 2020-04-24 20:47:33

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Post your /var/log/pacman.log please.

Mylog is here:

https://gist.github.com/johncparr/c949f … 3e65e1ba71

I am keen to learn if I've made mistakes here. This is a bit more detail about what I've been doing because since I've rolled back to working snapshots some of the pacman.log is lost.

I usually do a sudo pacman -Syu update every week or so. I always check the arch website to see if there are any issues to be aware of. It looks like the most recent before I hit issues was on 8th April.

Earlier this week I was learning anacron so I could copy some sensor data from a raspberry pi about once a day to my laptop. Around the same time i did a system update after which the timeshift issue started. This system update used:

pacman -Syu --overwrite /usr/lib\*/p11-kit-trust.so

because I had nss 3.51.1-1 installed.

My first thought was that i had messed up something with my learning of anacron so i rolled back and carefully made my anacron changes again which worked perfectly. I then repeated the system update but hit the timeshift issue again.

Once again I rolled back but this time, on the assumption that one of the dependencies of timeshift had caused the problem I individually upgraded each of the dependencies that were not at the latest version using sudo pacman -Sy [package_name]. (edit) I now know that doing this is not supported (end edit). When I tried to update xapps there was a dependency of libdbusmenu-gtk3 that was not on my system. i assumed it was a new dependency and installed it. timeshift worked fine (completed incremental manual snapshots) at each step. However after a full system update the timeshift issue had returned.

Finally I rolled back to immediately before the full system update (hence it is missing from the log). The system is working fine (anacron job and timeshift) but I'd like to find a solution so I can upgrade regularly again.

Thanks for your time looking at this.

Last edited by PonJar (2020-04-25 08:45:04)

PonJar · 2020-04-26 11:48:39

I've continued to try to diagnose this issue with the following results:

I have 3 machines running arch, a laptop, a desktop and a virtual machine. The timeshift issue first arose on the laptop which has KDE and LXQt DE's installed. The desktop install is only about a month old, has timeshift and has just the LXQt DE. The virtual machine has the XFCE DE and had no timeshift installed.

I updated the desktop machine and this broke timeshift, giving the identical issue to that experienced on the laptop. I tried totally rebuilding timeshift from scratch and got the same result.

I updated the virtual machine, and installed timeshift for the first time on this machine. The installation process pulled in quite a few dependencies and works as expected.

I think I will go back to the laptop, uninstall timeshift, uninstall orphaned dependencies, and see if I get a different outcome, by starting again.

Last edited by PonJar (2020-04-26 11:49:21)

zpg443 · 2020-04-26 13:27:17

I can confirm the issue with Timeshift. I ended up uninstalling, but I recall the issue was it was starting multiple instances causing the program to freeze. I plan to reinstall after it is updated. Any other info is appreciated.

PonJar · 2020-04-26 15:35:04

PonJar wrote:

I think I will go back to the laptop, uninstall timeshift, uninstall orphaned dependencies, and see if I get a different outcome, by starting again.

Well that didn't work. I thought it might because a first time installation of timeshift on my updated virtual machine did work. There were a number of orphaned dependencies created largely by removing timeshift from the laptop. They all reinstalled when I rebuilt timeshift from scratch.

I'm thinking of reinstalling arch from scratch on the desktop. The install is only a few weeks old and there is nothing much on it to restore but I will wait a few days and see if a solution emerges.

PonJar · 2020-04-30 17:37:00

I now have a few solutions to this issue thanks to the discussion on several boards. The issue seems to be linked to significant changes in the dhcpcd package when it recently updated to version 9.x. This version mounts filesystems under /var/lib/dhcpcd which results in a huge volume of data, perhaps an infinite amount, to backup.

There are a two solutions I've found that work:

1. Stop the dhcpcd service while backing up. (not ideal)
2. Switch the management of network services to NetworkManager. (Haven't found a downside to this yet)

Others report success with a 3rd solution which I haven't tried:

3, Set the exclude parameters to exclude any folder below /var/lib/dhcpcd

This explains why one of my Arch installs was unaffected, it already used NetworkManager, while the others all used dhcpcd.

Last edited by PonJar (2020-04-30 17:43:52)

Lone_Wolf · 2020-05-01 11:44:58

Haven't found a downside to this yet

Just search for problems with NetworkManager and you'll get an idea of the downsides

Arch Linux

#1 2020-04-24 08:47:55

Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#2 2020-04-24 11:03:48

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#3 2020-04-24 11:34:10

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#4 2020-04-24 11:47:26

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#5 2020-04-24 20:47:33

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#6 2020-04-26 11:48:39

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#7 2020-04-26 13:27:17

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#8 2020-04-26 15:35:04

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#9 2020-04-30 17:37:00

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

#10 2020-05-01 11:44:58

Re: Timeshift broken after system upgrade [Solved by workaround]

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