Every upgrade was done with these 2 scripts as root - many machines are wifi only so it is download and then install

softupd_applet is what calls packagekit in Mate desktop and can break an update.

llr@LLR1:~> cat /a/u/do153
zypper mr -d 1 3 9 10
pkill softupd_applet
zypper -vvv --releasever 15.3 ref
zypper -vvv --releasever 15.3 dup --download-only --allow-vendor-change

llr@LLR1:~> cat /a/u/pt2
/sbin/init 3
sleep 2
zypper -vvv --releasever 15.3 --no-refresh dup --allow-vendor-change
llr@LLR1:~>

Only these 3 repos active during the dup

 7 | repo-non-oss                | openSUSE-Leap-15.3-Non-Oss                    | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 8 | repo-oss                    | openSUSE-Leap-15.3-Oss                        | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
11 | repo-update                 | openSUSE-Leap-15.3-Update                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes

On 16/06/2021 08.48, Martin Wilck wrote:

On Di, 2021-06-15 at 14:38 -0500, Larry Rainey wrote:

Every machine that was like that - I had to boot to run level 3 and
zypper in kernel-default-optional kernel-default-extra as they did
not get updated via zypper up

If you update to a new Leap version (e.g. 15.2 -> 15.3), you need to
use "zypper dup". That's well documented. Even then, the -extra and
-optional packages will only be installed if you install recommended
packages (which is the default).

Absolutely, it is crucial to use "zypper dup" when upgrading from one distribution to the next (or in Tumbleweed). Using "zypper up" for this job causes problems.

And having recommends disabled can bite you sometimes.