# Odd "not sending symlinks to old client" messages on Debian
**URL:** https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 31, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254 "2019-12-31T17:00:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@odin](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/odin)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254/1 "2019-12-31T17:00:10Z")
I have a small cluster of machines syncing a few folders. They’re all running syncthing from the OS repositories, and they’re all running on Debian sid. They all keep showing a message with the message in the title - in both directions. This seems odd. There seems to be no proper version number, which may be the cause for this.
Are the Debian packages outdated or otherwise less preferable now? As I recall there were instructions to install from Debian’s repositories when I started using syncthing.
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### Author:  [@dhopfm](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/dhopfm)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254/2 "2019-12-31T17:28:00Z")
Could you share which version it is you are running? The version number is displayed in the web UI for instance.
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### Author:  [@odin](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/odin)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254/3 "2019-12-31T17:57:46Z")
It shows ‘unknown-dev’ in several places where I’d expect a version number. As I said, this is a system package, so I find this a little … odd.
`apt show` claims this should be version 1.1.4, though. Seems like the debian packages are somewhat out of date now, which they weren’t earlier this year. Oh, well, I guess I’m off to change `sources.list`.
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### Author:  [@dhopfm](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/dhopfm)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254/4 "2019-12-31T18:10:41Z")
If you want the latest version of Syncthing I’d recommend adding Syncthing’s [own repo](https://apt.syncthing.net/) to your `sources.list`.
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### Author:  [@odin](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/odin)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254/5 "2019-12-31T18:17:52Z")
I’m going to, but it’s still confusing that it happens. That’s a Debian bug, though.
The message seems to be because it’s issued on the basis of a version number parse, and a build that doesn’t have a proper version number doesn’t scan as being newer than the versions symlinks don’t work on. I wonder if there might be a better way to test for that.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/odd-not-sending-symlinks-to-old-client-messages-on-debian/14254/6 "2020-01-30T18:17:56Z")
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