System update fails "Could not open path to sync"

System update fails. When config was previously working. With “Could not open path to sync”

We created our own pi image using mender-convert to increase the root disk size. Then created a system artifact using mender-artifact. And successfully deployed it to a new device with the raw pi image from the mender-convert step. This was on 15-Aug-2025, I believe that the mender-update version was 5.0.1.

But now it is not working. I am trying to deploy the same system artifact to a new device with the raw pi image mender-update version 5.0.3 (installed using the copy paste commands given in the ‘connect new device’ tab on the devices dashboard) I get this log output. looks like the path is uninitialized.

“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:28.877306Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Running Mender client 5.0.3”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:28.877617Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Deployment with ID cea1e339-2f95-4484-a75c-a1f073092312 started.”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:28.878769Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Sending status update to server”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:29.913904Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Installing artifact…”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:29.923150Z”,“level”:“error”,“message”:“No such file or directory: Could not open path to sync: ߠ\n^B^@^@^@^@/mender/modules/v3/payloads/0000/tree/version”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:29.923740Z”,“level”:“error”,“message”:"Operation canceled: GET https://c271964d41749feb10da762816c952ee.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/mender-artifact-storage-prod-h>
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:29.944763Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Sending status update to server”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:30.688438Z”,“level”:“error”,“message”:"Could not send deployment status: Bad response error: Got unexpected response 400 from logs API: invalid character '\x0>
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:27:30.688629Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Retrying status update after 60 seconds”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T14:28:30.688825Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Sending status update to server”}

Repeated lines….

{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T15:03:46.859720Z”,“level”:“error”,“message”:"Could not send deployment status: Bad response error: Got unexpected response 400 from logs API: invalid character '\x0>
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T15:03:46.859934Z”,“level”:“error”,“message”:“Giving up on sending status updates to server: Tried maximum number of times: Exponential backoff”}
{“timestamp”:“2025-11-11T15:03:46.863945Z”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Deployment with ID cea1e339-2f95-4484-a75c-a1f073092312 finished with status: Failure”}