# Deb 10 -\> 11 upgrade and rules no longer load

**URL:** <https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/deb-10-11-upgrade-and-rules-no-longer-load/1413>\
**Category:** General Help/Support\
**Created:** [January 24, 2023, 12:41pm UTC](https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/deb-10-11-upgrade-and-rules-no-longer-load/1413 "2023-01-24T12:41:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sshaikh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@sshaikh](https://discuss.prometheus.io/u/sshaikh)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 12:41pm UTC](https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/deb-10-11-upgrade-and-rules-no-longer-load/1413/1 "2023-01-24T12:41:34Z")

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I had a fully working Prometheus instance running on Debian 10, although I cannot remember what version it was (but it was up to date). Rules were working fine.

I have since upgraded Debian to 11, and Prom is now running version 2.24.1. However my rules files are no longer loading.

The relevant config in the (unchanged) Prom yml is:

```auto
# Load rules once and periodically evaluate them according to the global 'evaluation_interval'.
rule_files:
  - /home/prometheus-user/prometheus/rules/*.yml

```

Two files exist in there, and `promtool` is successfully able to check and load them:

```auto
$ ll /home/prometheus-user/prometheus/rules/*.yml
-rw-r--r-- 1 prometheus-user prometheus 2725 Jan 23 22:03 /home/prometheus-user/prometheus/rules/alerts.yml
-rw-r--r-- 1 prometheus-user prometheus 373 Aug 25 2020 /home/prometheus-user/prometheus/rules/recording-rules.yml

```

Under Rules in the web ui I see:

```auto
Rules
No rules defined 

```

But the configuration seems to have loaded fine via the web ui.

Running Prom with the debug log level doesn’t seem to show anything interesting.

Any help or tips appreciated!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sshaikh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@sshaikh](https://discuss.prometheus.io/u/sshaikh)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://discuss.prometheus.io/t/deb-10-11-upgrade-and-rules-no-longer-load/1413/2 "2023-01-24T15:04:23Z")

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Ok fixed - turns out the new systemd unit uses a `ProtectHome=true` directive that makes home directories appear empty. Moving the rules to `/etc/prometheus` had them loading again.