Pi-hole Version 6 Compatibility with Raspberry Pi 3

Dear Community,
I am reaching out to inquire about the compatibility of Pi-hole version 6 with the Raspberry Pi 3. I have been using Pi-hole for quite some time, and it has worked flawlessly until the recent update. Since then, my Raspberry Pi 3 has become unresponsive.

It seems like many other users are experiencing similar problems with version 6 on the Raspberry Pi 3.

  1. In general, is the Raspberry Pi 3 still able to run and host the latest version 6 of Pi-hole?

  2. Is it advisable to upgrade to a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 for better performance and more RAM?

  3. Additionally, would it be better to perform a fresh install on the Raspberry Pi 3, or is it possible to downgrade back to version 5 if I decide to stick with it?

  4. Does it makes sense to try "sudo pihole -r " (Reconfigure or Repair Pi-hole subsystems)

Debug Token:

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/7mq9BWus/

Here the error message while updating pi-hole:

[i] Building tree...
[✗] Unable to build gravity tree in /etc/pihole/gravity.db_temp

[i] If you have a large amount of domains, make sure your Pi-hole has enough RAM available

Error: stepping, database disk image is malformed (11)

  1. Would this command solve the problem?
sudo pihole checkout core tweak/sqlite_temp_store

Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Best regards,
Bruno

Yes.

No.

No, and yes, easiest via Docker.

Perhaps, if something is broken that the repair script is intended to fix.

Likely not, as that has been merged into development already.

But you have a huge gravity database, weighing over 600M, and your long term database size of ~500M would have kept your RPi 3 quite busy during the upgrade's database conversion.

Since you observe a malformed error, please check your database intergrity and share the results of:

sudo pihole-FTL sqlite3 /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db "PRAGMA integrity_check"
sudo pihole-FTL sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "PRAGMA integrity_check"

Given the size of your databases, this may take a rather long time to complete, may well be several minutes.

Your debug log shows that your webserver.threads are set to 0 (default), to have the webserver determine a thread count value.
We've received reports that explicitly setting that value has improved web UI responsiveness.

Please try to change that, e.g. to 6

sudo pihole-FTL --config webserver.threads 6
1 Like

Yes.

I run one Pi-hole at home in a Raspberry Pi 3B+ (in a docker container), without issues.

1 Like

Hello Bucking_Horn!

Thank you very much for your detailed response and for answering every single question in such an efficient way. I appreciate it!

sudo pihole-FTL sqlite3 /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db "PRAGMA integrity_check"
sudo pihole-FTL sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "PRAGMA integrity_check"

Both checks returned OK just a few seconds later. It took not very much time—less than 10 seconds for sure, maybe even less than that.

I also changed webserver.threads to 6, as you advised.

After that, I made an update since new updates have been available since today.

I will provide an update after I check the new configuration during the day.

Maybe a stupid question, but anyway, why is it recommended to run Pi-hole in a Docker container?
From my perspective, I would prefer to keep it as simple and lightweight as possible. Doesn’t Docker add another layer of complication to a simple setup like Pi-hole on a very lightweight Raspberry Pi?
I just want to gain a better understanding of your advice.

PS: Right now, the Pi-hole is updating the gravity.

You are misreading my answer.
There is no general recommendation to run Pi-hole in Docker of bare metal.
Installing a previous version is just easier with Docker, as you just need to pull the respective image, e.g. docker pull pihole/pihole:2024.07.0 for the last v5 one.

Installing a previous Pi-hole version via CLI would require to manually pull specific component versions and to manual change the installation script used.

Hello Bucking_Horn!

I apologize for my misreading of your comment. I was not attentive enough.
Mea culpa! :slight_smile:

Thank you very much for your clarification.

Quick Update on My Pi-hole

I wanted to share a short update on my Pi-hole setup based on your advice:

  1. Changed webserver.threads to 6: Following your suggestion, I adjusted the webserver.threads setting to 6. This change has made a noticeable difference!

  2. Running pihole -f: I also executed the command pihole -f to flush the DNS query logs.

  3. Successful Tree Building: After implementing these two steps, I was finally able to complete the tree building process after updating the gravity. This is a significant milestone for me, as I had been struggling with this issue since the last update, and it always seemed to fail before.

I think everything is running smoothly and as intended again.

Thank you very much for your time and support.

Best, Bruno

This topic was automatically closed 21 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.