How to: Fix pfSense package update stuck at “Writing configuration… done.”

Temporary solution/workaround

1 Login to pfSense terminal or via SSH

2 Select 8 (Shell), press Enter key to bring up shell if via SSH

3 Execute following command to kill the package installation process

killall -9 pkg-static

Note: Usually, after this command, we can see the update is done (Not guaranteed)

Note: Usually it’s probably better to reinstall the pfSense system if you have encountered this problem, otherwise chances are, you will encounter the same problem next time when updating/installing/uninstalling the same package.

Other related fixes (May or may not help to fix this issue)

(Best way to fix this issue: Wait for the next or next next release which will fix this issue, developers are aware of it)

If we want to fix this issue for future updates, we can try following command

Warning: Make sure only execute following upgrade command when down time is allowed (Just in case)

killall -9 pkg-static
pkg-static upgrade -f

If we want to fix corrupted pfSense upgrade (update check failed, update does not complete), we can execute following command

pkg install -y pfSense-upgrade