Troubleshooting Tip: 'autod' crashes after upgrade to v7.4.12

Description

This article describes the reason for autod crashes after an upgrade to FortiOS v7.4.12.

Scope

FortiOS v7.4.12.

Solution

The symptom is the autod process crashing frequently in the crashlogs with signal 11 (Segmentation fault). The autod daemon handles features such like automation stitches and automation scripts.

The command to see the FortiGate crash log is 'diagnose debug crashlog read':

8161: 2026-05-14 07:01:09 <08449> application autod
8162: 2026-05-14 07:01:09 <08449> *** signal 11 (Segmentation fault) received ***

The reason for this is the 'Auto Firmware upgrade' setting being deprecated during the upgrade from v7.4.11 to v7.4.12. In the settings this can be seen as an empty setting, which ultimately causes the crashes.

The workaround is to delete this setting.

config system automation-stitch
...
    edit "Upgrade Notification"
    next
...

The solution is to upgrade FortiOS firmware to v7.4.13, v7.6.8, and v8.0.1 where possible.