The Updates tab has two pieces of information that look like one: when this install last checked, and what it decided the last time it actually evaluated a build. While updates are switched on those move together and nobody can tell them apart. Switch updates off and they come apart completely — the check keeps running and keeps noting "updates are disabled on this install", while the last real verdict sits underneath, unchanged, being read as current.

An install seen this week had recorded a refusal at 22:27 on 7 September and last checked at 10:41 on 9 September — thirty-six hours later. On screen, the refusal read as the reason the install was not moving. It was not. Two of the problems it named had been fixed two hours after it was written, and nothing had looked at it since.

What changed

Nothing about the record. It is still kept, and still quoted in full — it is the one useful thing to read before switching updates back on, and throwing it away to avoid showing something stale would trade a misleading answer for no answer at all.

What changed is that it now says what it is:

🗄️ This is a record, not a current verdict. Automatic updates are switched off on this install, so nothing has re-checked 3.0.0-ci.8057 since 2026-09-07 22:27 — what follows is the last evaluation that ran, and it may name problems that have since been fixed. Switch updates on to have it re-checked.

The "(held «date»)" line goes with it, because that phrasing describes something still happening.

The About page follows the same rule: it no longer reports "update held" on the strength of a note nothing can refresh. A build that a verification actually refused still reads as held — that is a recorded fact about the build, not a note about the checker, and the difference is now the one that decides.

Why it is worth a release note

Because it wasted a day. An issue was opened against this platform arguing that three retired packages were holding every update on an install forever, quoting the frozen text as evidence. The mechanism it described had been removed from the product two hours after that text was written. The report was careful, the reasoning was sound, and the screen it was reading from gave it no way to know.