Applies To

OpenSUSE upgrade performing from version Leap 15.6 to Leap 16.0.

Problem

After upgrading to openSUSE Leap 16.0, any files stored in /tmp are permanently deleted on every system reboot. Applications or scripts that relied on /tmp for storing data between reboots will lose that data, potentially causing application failures or unexpected behavior.

Reference: openSUSE Leap 16.0 Release Notes – v160-tmp-not-persistent .

Cause

openSUSE Leap 16.0 enables tmp.mount by default, which mounts /tmp as a tmpfs — a virtual filesystem that lives entirely in RAM. This is a modern Linux best practice: /tmp was always intended as a short-lived scratch space, not persistent storage. Making it RAM-backed improves performance and security (sensitive temporary data is automatically cleared on reboot), but means nothing in /tmp survives a restart.

Solution/Workaround

Use /var/tmp for Persistent Temporary Files (Recommended)

/var/tmp is the correct location for temporary files that must survive reboots. It is disk-backed and preserved across restarts by design.

Any application or script currently writing persistent data to /tmp should be updated to use /var/tmp instead.

With this we can reconfigure the application's temporary folder. Refer to the application's temporary folder configuration guide for instructions: System Startup Configuration – Temporary Folder.

Note: Any changes to the temporary folder configuration should be made before performing the upgrade to avoid data loss.