SOLVED: Unbuntu Software updater crashing

[jarspider]

I've got Jellyfin installed on Ubuntu, and it's no longer updating.  I was away for business for a while, and I just left it running unattended.  Everything has worked great, but now that I'm back and trying to do updates, the Software updater is crashing because it says that there is no longer a Release version for the version of Ubuntu that I'm on.  That's fine.  I try to go into Software Updater and update Ubuntu, but it's crashing because of the Jellyfin update not working.  Any ideas or suggestions on how to get around this?  Still a bit of a newbie when it comes to Linux.

Thanks!

[TheDreadPirate]

We do not maintain the Jellyfin server snap, which is what you've installed.

You can try running the snap updated on the command line. "snap --help" for the basic options.

[jarspider]

Huh, I thought I used the instructions from the Jellyfin site... Oh well, it's been a couple of years... Sounds like my best bet is to uninstall and do a good clean install. Any good way to maintain sync of episode / movie views between servers if I just spin up another Ubuntu server to install it correctly?

[TheDreadPirate]

First verify that you are, in fact, using the snap version with "snap list" IIRC.

If you are using the unofficial snap, it depends on how the snap works. If it still writes data to /var/lib/jellyfin then it should be as simple as backing up /var/lib/jellyfin and /etc/jellyfin, just incase removing the snap removes those directories, and installing the deb package.

[jarspider]

Ran that command, and it did give me a list. Jellyfin wasn't in that list, though.

[TheDreadPirate]

Ok. What is the output of "sudo apt list --installed | grep jellyfin"? I'm assuming Jellyfin is there.

What version of Ubuntu are you on? 24.04? 22.04? I'm guessing 24.04 based on what you said in the opening post. If so, you can try upgrading jellyfin-ffmpeg since jellyfin-ffmpeg5 has not, and will not, be rebuilt for Noble.

Code:

sudo apt install jellyfin-ffmpeg6

That should replace jellyfin-ffmpeg5 with 6, which has been rebuilt for 24.04 Noble and should satisfy apt.

[jarspider]

No, I really haven't updated this server in a while, apparently.  I'm still on 23.04, which is probably a big part of the issue, but I can't update Ubuntu because the Jellyfin updates are causing the updater to crash.

Code:

jellyfin-ffmpeg5/now 5.1.3-2-kinetic amd64 [installed,upgradable to: 5.1.3-5-kinetic]
jellyfin-server/now 10.8.10-1 amd64 [installed,upgradable to: 10.8.13-1]
jellyfin-web/now 10.8.10-1 all [installed,upgradable to: 10.8.13-1]
jellyfin/now 10.8.10-1 all [installed,upgradable to: 10.8.13-1]

That's the output of the apt list command you wanted me to run.

This is the result of the sudo apt install command:

Code:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
jellyfin-ffmpeg6 : Conflicts: jellyfin-ffmpeg5 but 5.1.3-2-kinetic is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

[TheDreadPirate]

Ah. Yes, we drop support for EOL Ubuntu distros, which applies to 23.04.

Here is how I would do this.

1) Stop Jellyfin (sudo systemctl stop jellyfin)
2) Backup Jellyfin data and configs (/var/lib/jellyfin and /etc/jellyfin and move to non-OS drive)
3) Remove Jellyfin (sudo apt remove jellyfin*)
4) Modify Jellyfin repo source (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/jellyfin.sources). Replace suites field. kinetic changed to noble.
5) Now you should be able to upgrade Ubuntu to 24.04
6) Once the OS upgrade is complete you will need to manually install Jellyfin instead of using the script.
----a) sudo apt install jellyfin-ffmpeg6
----b) sudo apt install jellyfin-server (this will also install jellyfin-web as a dependency)
7) Stop Jellyfin (sudo systemctl stop jellyfin) and restore /var/lib/jellyfin and /etc/jellyfin from your backup.
----a) Will also need to chown the data and config dir (sudo chown -R jellyfin: /var/lib/jellyfin /etc/jellyfin)
----b) Start Jellyfin (sudo systemctl start jellyfin)

[jarspider]

Sounds easy enough... I'll have to add a note to update that server occasionally. Thanks for the help!

[TheDreadPirate]

If you stick with a LTS release you won't have to worry for 5 years. :-)