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DKMS Error causes complete failure of DKMS on kernel updates #345

@doctormo

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@doctormo

My PopOS 24.04 based system had a condition where every kernel upgrade would kick my system76 and v4l2loopback DMKS packages out and these would have to be forcefully reinstalled in order to re-enable them.

I decided that instead of using the PopOS store to run my updates, I would use the apt command line. where I saw this interesting message:

Processing triggers for linux-image-6.17.9-76061709-generic (6.17.9-76061709.202511241048~1764607909~24.04~df6b2b6) ...
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms:
 * dkms: running auto installation service for kernel 6.17.9-76061709-generic
Error! Could not locate dkms.conf file.
File: /var/lib/dkms/system76/1.0.15~1723747371~24.04~341bcde/source/dkms.conf does not exist.
 * dkms: autoinstall for kernel 6.17.9-76061709-generic
   ...done.

The dkms trigger appears to accept failure as success. Which is bad enough. But it also allows this type of failure to stop the entire process and does not continue onwards to working packages.

The same error can be seen with the command dkms status, this is certainly an upstream fragility problem. But I think it concerns system76 since you depend upon dkms for your hardwaree compatibility.

The problem appears to be an old system76 directory which isn't in use. Once this folder was moved out of the way, dkms starts behaving correctly.

Running sudo dkms autoinstall -k 6.17.9-76061709-generic once the false directory was removed all the remaining packages system76-io and system76-thelio and v4l2loopback built correctly with only a warning of Sign command: /usr/bin/kmodsign Binary update-secureboot-policy not found, modules won't be signed but I think this is typical.

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