Communication error. Is FTL running?

Help
1

Break after upgrade

Expected Behaviour:

sudo pihole enable
Should start pihole

Actual Behaviour:

sudo pihole enable
/opt/pihole/api.sh: line 25: utilsfile: readonly variable
Communication error. Is FTL running?

Debug Token:

Replace this text with the debug token provided from running pihole -d

2

After update to FTL 6.2 same error:

/opt/pihole/api.sh: line 25: utilsfile: readonly variable
Communication error. Is FTL running?

service pihole-FTL restart doesn't help

Update on a Raspberry Pi without issues...

3

I am seeing the same symptom. Rather than reporting to the developers by opening a new ticket, I thought I'd tag onto this one, but if the development team would prefer me to open a new ticket, let me know.

I just installed pihole on a newly imaged Raspberry Pi today (Jun 1, 2025). I installed using instructions at https:/docs.pi-hole.net/main/basic-install. Did a clone of the repository and ran basic-install.sh.

I have two problems:

  1. "sudo pihole enable" returns the two error messages exactly as Jawherbelmabrouk described above
  2. When I try to browse to the web interface at http:<my pihole's IP>:80/admin, my browser displays "Unable to connect". I'm guessing that might be because FTL isn't running?

I have uploaded debug logs via pihole-d, and the debug token is:
https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/5gjKdaCO/

4

Please try updating to the most recent bugfix releases.

pihole -up

5

Thanks for the quick update! Unfortunately, while "pihole -up" did pick up newer updates, my symptoms remain the same, as far as I can tell. After doing the update followed by a reboot, the output from "pihole enable" has the same error message, and I'm still unable to get to the web interface at "http:<my_ip>/admin" I've uploaded a new set of logs at:
https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/RDjICSdO/

6

I can confirm that unfortunately the latest updates do not fix the issue. Still seeing the exact same behaviour.

7

Browsing around other parts of this board, I found this thread:

That suggests temporarily replacing the newest 6.2 pihole-FTL with the 6.1 version. I can confirm that following those instructions and running the 6.1 FTL fixes the problems that I was experiencing.

8

The newly released FTL 6.2.2 fixes the problem. I just updated Pi-hole and all works as expected.

Thanks to the developers for the quick fix!