Hi everyone,
We are moving from Mender 2.6.0 (our V1 devices) to 3.3.2 (Our new devices, which we call V2). We are planning to update V1 to V2 using our self-hosted server. We’ve tested our images in detail, and everything is fine.
The problem is that, in some cases, we’ve encountered random update failures while we update V1 images that use mender 2.6.0. It’s interesting that the same artifact may be successfully installed at the 1st try; however, in some cases, there are some consecutive failures.
The following shows one of the failed logs:
2026-07-02 06:59:17 +0000 UTC info: Running Mender client version: 2.6.0-dirty
2026-07-02 06:59:17 +0000 UTC error: Cannot check update or update inventory while in update-store state
2026-07-02 06:59:17 +0000 UTC info: State transition: update-fetch [Download_Enter] -> update-store [Download_Enter]
2026-07-02 06:59:17 +0000 UTC info: Installer: authenticated digital signature of artifact
2026-07-02 06:59:18 +0000 UTC info: Opening device "/dev/mmcblk2p2" for writing
2026-07-02 06:59:18 +0000 UTC info: Native sector size of block device /dev/mmcblk2p2 is 512 bytes. Mender will write in chunks of 1048576 bytes
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: All bytes were successfully written to the new partition
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: The optimized block-device writer wrote a total of 1457 frames, where 1037 frames did need to be rewritten (i.e., skipped)
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: Wrote 1526726656/1526726656 bytes to the inactive partition
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: State transition: update-store [Download_Enter] -> update-after-store [Download_Leave]
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: State transition: update-after-store [Download_Leave] -> update-install [ArtifactInstall]
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: Executing script: ArtifactInstall_Enter_00
2026-07-06 00:25:17 +0000 UTC info: Enabling partition with new image installed to be a boot candidate: 2
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC info: State transition: update-install [ArtifactInstall] -> reboot [ArtifactReboot_Enter]
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC info: Rebooting device(s)
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC info: Mender rebooting from active partition: /dev/mmcblk2p1
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC error: Error rebooting device: signal: terminated
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC info: State transition: reboot [ArtifactReboot_Enter] -> rollback [ArtifactRollback]
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC info: Performing rollback
2026-07-06 00:25:18 +0000 UTC info: Rolling back to the active partition: (1).
2026-07-06 00:25:19 +0000 UTC info: State transition: rollback [ArtifactRollback] -> rollback-reboot [ArtifactRollbackReboot_Enter]
2026-07-06 00:25:19 +0000 UTC info: Rebooting device(s) after rollback
2026-07-06 00:25:19 +0000 UTC info: Mender rebooting from inactive partition: /dev/mmcblk2p1
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: Running Mender client version: 2.6.0-dirty
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: Mender shut down in state: rollback-reboot
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: State transition: init [none] -> verify-rollback-reboot [ArtifactRollbackReboot_Leave]
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: State transition: verify-rollback-reboot [ArtifactRollbackReboot_Leave] -> after-rollback-reboot [ArtifactRollbackReboot_Leave]
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: State transition: after-rollback-reboot [ArtifactRollbackReboot_Leave] -> update-error [ArtifactFailure]
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: State transition: update-error [ArtifactFailure] -> cleanup [Error]
2026-07-06 00:27:19 +0000 UTC info: State transition: cleanup [Error] -> update-status-report [none]
In all cases, it seems that the mender.service can’t be terminated, and the serial console waits for the service. At the end of the day, it seems that the systemd terminates the mender daemon after the timeout of 1min 30 sec.
I found some pages with a semi-issue 
, but it seems that my problem is different, because we don’t have any issue with fw_printenv or fw_set_env executables.
The following is one of the pages mentioned the same errors, but the issue isn’t marked as solved in them:
Thank you in advance,
Cheers,