Resolved "The System Updates tool is already installing updates in automatic mode. Please try later."

[Bitpalast]

Onyx, CentOS 7.2

Test system recently upgraded vom 12.5.30 via command line tool, no major issues occured during the upgrade.

The new function "Tools & Settings > System Updates" does not work properly or we don't understand the function: Check any or all of the suggested updates, then click "Update" in the menu bar. This results in an error message: "The System Updates tool is already installing updates in automatic mode. Please try later." However, we don't see any ongoing updates in the system's process list and "Automatically install system package updates" on the settings page is NOT set.

Might these two process entries in the process list causing this? What are they doing and should be in the process list or are these hung processes that need to be killed?

root 21969 0.0 0.0 142804 22408 ? S 06:57 0:00 /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/autoinstaller --service-mode=components --enable-xml-output --ssl-cert /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem --branch current,release,stable --web-interface --with-ssl --disable-browser

root 21970 0.0 0.0 124460 13032 ? S 06:57 0:00 /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/autoinstaller --service-mode=components --enable-xml-output --ssl-cert /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem --branch current,release,stable --web-interface --with-ssl --disable-browser

 

[IgorG]

root 21969 0.0 0.0 142804 22408 ? S 06:57 0:00 /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/autoinstaller --service-mode=components --enable-xml-output --ssl-cert /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem --branch current,release,stable --web-interface --with-ssl --disable-browser

root 21970 0.0 0.0 124460 13032 ? S 06:57 0:00 /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/autoinstaller --service-mode=components --enable-xml-output --ssl-cert /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/httpsd.pem --branch current,release,stable --web-interface --with-ssl --disable-browser

These processes run when you visiting Tools&Settings > Updates and Upgrades and keep alive 10 minutes. It prevents running Plesk installer from CLI. That is the reason why the following message appears when you visited Tools & Settings > System Updates:

"The System Updates tool is already installing updates in automatic mode. Please try later."

 

[vkleinhenz]

What sense does this make? The only effect that I can see is that this procedure piles up updates that get never installed. Lat week I had about "Updates for 30 packages are available." and this week: "Updates for 61 packages are available." When will they get installed and how do I force installation of updates without that ridiculous ""The System Updates tool is already installing updates in automatic mode. Please try later." message?

 

[UFHH01]

Hi vkleinhenz,

if the updates shown over your Plesk Control Panel are not being installed "automatically" within the DAILY MAINTENANCE task, you should investigate WHY this is the case.

Pls. check your unique settings at: => Home > Tools & Settings > Update and Upgrade Settings

... and be aware, that "Plesk updates" and "system package updates" are TWO separate options.​

Pls. check possible for ( possible ) errors/issues/problems in your logs and pls. keep in mind, that Plesk is not able to solve issues with your "software package manager" ( yum on CentOS/RHEL - based systems OR apt/aptitude/dpkg on Debian/Ubuntu - based systems ).​

If you would like help with investigations, pls. post at least some depending errors/issues/problems from your log - file(s), because nobody can guess them.

 

[vkleinhenz]

When I disable all "Automatically install..." options, there's a "please wait" message that never disappears, if I enable these options there's the "The System Updates tool is already installing updates in automatic mode. Please try later." message.

"Log - files(s)": Which log files might contain any related errors/issues/problems?

Isn't updating a Plesk server by: 'apt-get update' -> 'apt-get upgrade' -> 'service apache2 restart' the better alternative?

 

[UFHH01]

Hi vkleinhenz,

"Log - files(s)": Which log files might contain any related errors/issues/problems?

Pls. see:

Plesk for Linux services logs and configuration files ( KB - article: 111 283 )​

Sometimes, it is as well a good idea to change the log - level, to get more informations in psa - log - files:

How to enable/disable debug logging in Plesk 11.5 and up? ( KB - article 120 101 )​

Isn't updating a Plesk server by: 'apt-get update' -> 'apt-get upgrade' -> 'service apache2 restart' the better alternative?

The question can't be answered with a "YES" or "NO".
If you call your above commands on a daily basis ( where it isn't at all necessary to restart your apache2-webserver daily, by the way... ) and you call such commands unattended over cronjobs, then the answer is a definite "NO", because in case of issues/errors/problems, your investigations to get to the root cause of a possible issue/error/problem have to cover a larger range.
... but, if you call your above commands MANUALLY over the command line, where you are able to inspect the current process(es) and it's outputs, the answer is a defnite "YES".