Common Problems

UEFI Plugin

If the UEFI plugin isn't working correctly, the first thing to check would be the output when called from the command line fwupdmgr tool. Look for errors at the end of running fwupdmgr update or fwupdmgr install.

Unknown error -1

When you receive this error it's typically caused by a misconfiguration in fwupdate installation. This can range from things like a missing fw directory on the EFI system partition to missing bootloader files.

In order to effectively debug it, it's recommended to upgrade to fwupd 0.9.6 or later. fwupd 0.9.6+ will display more verbose error messages to indicate the real source of the problem.

open(/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/fwupdate-*-*-*): No such file or directory

ops->get_variable failed: No such file or directory

These errors are red herrings to a problem. They are fixed in fwupdate 10.

mkostemps(/boot/efi/EFI/$EFIDIR/fw/fwupdate-XXXXX.cap) failed: No such file or directory

This means that the fw directory is missing on the EFI system partition. Create the firmware directory using a command like this: # mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/$EFIDIR/fw/ This will be fixed to automatically create the directory in fwupdate 10.

could not find shim or fwup on ESP: No such file or directory

This means that the fwupdate bootloader was not installed to the EFI system partition. If your distribution package doesn't automatically do it, you will have to manually copy it to the proper location on the EFI system partition. See also Missing-ESP-binaries.

I see a "Linux-Firmware-Updater" in my boot menu, but selecting it does nothing

This means that fwupd has successfully prepared the system to install updates on boot, but the system cannot boot into this mode (e.g., selecting it just immediately returns to the boot menu, without any error). This may be a system-specific issue with MBR partition tables. Converting the drive to a GPT partition table may help.