I have noticed that the software app only has an ‘updates’ tab when there are updates to be made. Makes sense at first glance. However, without the tab there appears to be no way to manually check for updates using the app, which becomes an issue when you know there are updates to be made but the software app hasn’t checked yet.
I run fedora (now 43) on multiple machines and it is always annoying when I know there are updates and I can’t force the software app to see them and instead have to wait until the software app decides to look.
Am I missing something? Is there a way to force the software app to check for updates from within the app when the updates tab isn’t present? Is there some fundamental reason why there is value in not having a persistent update tab so that users could check for updates any time they wanted? Is there some weird other reason why the update tab is not persistent on my installs?
Yes, I know I can do all the updates via command line (I’ve been a unix/linux/RH/Fedora user since before Gnome ), but that’s irrelevant here. The software app should have a way to check for updates regardless of whether or not updates are pending.
I apologize if this has already been covered elsewhere but I didn’t find anything when I searched.
I made no changes oob from my fedora 43 installs (which were fresh installs not upgrades), other than a few tweaks using gnome-tweaks (for auto-focus and the like). Just FYI, this was happening for me with F42 as well.
This is what I see right now when opening the software app:
The update tab is never there unless it says updates are pending. Right now I know there are many updates (ironically the one I’m actually wanting is the mutter update to fix a KiCad issue with gnome/Wayland)–a simple dnf check-upgrade shows a long list including the mutter update I’m looking for. But I can’t get the software app to check for updates.
Not that it’s relevant to this particular topic but I also have the same issue others have reported where gnome is inhibiting suspend because it thinks firefox is playing video when it isn’t. So I’m a little frustrated with Gnome right now.
One more thing. I do occasionally see the update tab saying things are up to date as you show. IIRC I only see it after a reboot after an update (but take that with a huge grain of salt as I really haven’t been paying attention to when I see it, but I know I’ve seen that screen on occasion). I’m almost certain that I’ve only seen it immediately after a reboot following an update. But then the tab isn’t there the next time I open the software app (speculating here but it might be after a suspend). And it definitely isn’t there when I need it (like now, in the screenshot above).
Hmm. That all looks as expected. Could you please file an issue against gnome-software and make sure to include a debug log (instructions are in the issue template). Thanks.
it does exactly what I told you happens. Killing and restarting caused it to check for updates so the tab has now reappeared. I have before and after shots in the issue report (since I figured that might happen), which is here: gitlab issue
To add to this…since I wanted to install the updates (which is what motivated me to open this in the first place), I did. But this time I carefully observed what happens. After the pkill the tab reappeared. I closed all the other windows and installed all the updates. Following that (and the reboot that accompanied it), opening the software app showed all 3 tabs and the “up to date” screen you posted earlier.
Next step was to suspend and resume. After rebooting I did nothing but open the software app to check the tabs. I then suspended the system (no issues), waited a few minutes, then resumed. And voila! Update tab is now gone. So it’s somehow related to suspend.
I mentioned earlier in this thread about having suspend issues with gnome thinking videos were still playing when they weren’t. Earlier I was having issues with suspend because I have an nvidia graphics card (system wouldn’t suspend at all or would crash/freeze/hang when trying to suspend). So I implemented this fix, which appears to work perfectly. Only recently I ran into the ‘gnome thinking something that is already done is still running’ suspend thing which appears to be totally different (and which I still deal with regularly).
Not sure whether any of that is relevant but given that it now appears that suspend has something to do with this I figured I’d add it to the thread. I’ll add it to the issue as well.
), but that’s irrelevant here. The software app should have a way to check for updates regardless of whether or not updates are pending.
