I hit this, and the symptoms are sometimes mysterious: <https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f39-kernels-fail-to-install-when-boot-efi-machineid-is-present/96086<; If a Fedora installation dates back long enough, a directory with a name /boot/efi/$(cat /etc/machine-id) might exist. Note: the last component of the name is the Machine ID, hence the odd construction. If that directory exists, the installer gets confused and fails. Unfortunately, that failure doesn't stop the upgrade so the error message very likely will scroll out of view. Then when you reboot, problems will ensue. This happened to me on a couple of systems before I got wise. The fix is detailed on the linked page. I've not decided to execute this command before updates on my old machines: sudo mv "/boot/efi/$(cat /etc/machine-id)" "/boot/efi/$(cat /etc/machine-id)_disabled" This is a bug in Fedora 39 but it also seems to be in Fedora 40. For haters: this seems to be a systemd project bug.