Below is the transcript of a site update. See the error at the end. Running update.php from a browser worked fine.

$ drush update
Refreshing update status information ...
Done.
Update information last refreshed: Thu, 07/30/2009 - 22:58

Update status information on all installed and enabled Drupal modules:
 Name                             Installed      Proposed       Status
                                  version        version
 Addresses                        6.x-1.05       6.x-1.05       Up to date
 Administration menu              6.x-1.5        6.x-1.5        Up to date
 Advanced help                    6.x-1.2        6.x-1.2        Up to date
 Automatic Nodetitles             6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 Autosave                         6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 Drupal                           6.13           6.13           Up to date
 Content Construction Kit (CCK)   6.x-2.4        6.x-2.4        Up to date
 Date                             6.x-2.2        6.x-2.3        SECURITY
                                                                UPDATE
                                                                available
 DHTML Menu                       6.x-3.5        6.x-3.5        Up to date
 Global Redirect                  6.x-1.2        6.x-1.2        Up to date
 Google Analytics                 6.x-2.2        6.x-2.2        Up to date
 Link                             6.x-2.6        6.x-2.6        Up to date
 Pathauto                         6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 Phone (CCK)                      6.x-2.8        6.x-2.8        Up to date
 Poormanscron                     6.x-1.0        6.x-1.0        Up to date
 Token                            6.x-1.12       6.x-1.12       Up to date
 Update status advanced settings  6.x-1.x-dev    6.x-1.0        Up to date
 Views                            6.x-2.6        6.x-2.6        Up to date
 Wysiwyg                          6.x-2.0        6.x-2.0        Up to date
 Views Bulk Operations (VBO)      6.x-1.7        6.x-1.7        Up to date
 Admin block                      6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 Big Autocomplete TAXonomy        6.x-1.5        6.x-1.5        Up to date
 Computed Field                   6.x-1.0-beta2  6.x-1.0-beta2  Up to date
 Content Templates (Contemplate)  6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 Diff                             6.x-2.0        6.x-2.0        Up to date
 Email Field                      6.x-1.2        6.x-1.2        Up to date
 Format Number API                6.x-1.4        6.x-1.4        Up to date
 IMCE                             6.x-1.2        6.x-1.2        Up to date
 IMCE Wysiwyg bridge              6.x-1.0        6.x-1.0        Up to date
 Term lower name                  6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 modr8                            6.x-1.1        6.x-1.1        Up to date
 Mollom                           6.x-1.9        6.x-1.9        Up to date
 Node import                      6.x-1.x-dev    6.x-1.0-rc4    Up to date
 Viewfield                        6.x-1.x-dev    6.x-1.x-dev    Up to date
 Views Calc                       6.x-1.3        6.x-1.3        Up to date
 Views Custom Field               6.x-1.0        6.x-1.0        Up to date
 Framework                        6.x-2.6        6.x-2.6        Up to date

Code updates will be made to the following projects:
Date [date-6.x-2.3]

Note: Updated modules can potentially break your site. It's not recommended to update production sites without prior testing.
Note: A backup of your package will be stored to backups directory if it is not managed by a supported version control system.
Note: If you have made any modifications to any file that belongs to one of these projects, you will have to migrate those modifications after updating.
Do you really want to continue? (y/n): y
Project date was updated successfully. Installed version is now 6.x-2.3.
Backups were saved into the directory                                [ok]
/[pathDeleted]/backup/modules/20090730160042.

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare theme_date_time_ago() (previously declared in /[pathDeleted]/sites/all/modules/date/date/date.theme:221) in /[pathDeleted]/sites/all/modules/date/theme/theme.inc on line 399
Drush command could not be completed.                                [error]

Comments

patacra’s picture

patacra commented

I also wanted to update the "date" module.

By calling update.php from the browser, it just returned me a white page.
I noticed the same fatal error only in the admin interface, when I tried to look at the list of installed modules.

Later on, I noticed that I didn't do a correct update of the "date" module. You might have to check if your date update was ok too.

Probably the "Drush" module isn't concerned by all of this...

aren cambre’s picture

aren cambre commented

Our experiences appear to be different. For me, Drush failed and update.php worked fine.

dugh’s picture

dugh commented

I get the same error updating the module via drush

miro_dietiker’s picture

miro_dietiker
Location Switzerland
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Same error here, after (almost) successful update of some modules (including date).

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare theme_date_time_ago() (previously declared in /home/www/web/sites/all/modules/date/date/date.theme:221) in /home/www/web/sites/all/modules/date/theme/theme.inc on line 399

This happens if a module moves functions from one file to another (during an update), and if drush tries to load the modules. In this case it's much more bad design by date.module than a drush bug.

Simply start drush again and it will confirm success.

miro_dietiker’s picture

miro_dietiker
Location Switzerland
commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (works as designed)

hmm.. sorry, chose wrong state. in any concern, move this bug to date.module as active.

aren cambre’s picture

aren cambre commented
Title: Couldn't update site » Date causes Drush error
Project: Drush » Date
Version: All-Versions-2.0 » 6.x-2.3
Status: Closed (works as designed) » Active

Moving to different issue queue.

jwilson3’s picture

jwilson3
Primary language English
Location Ecuador
commented

I've also encountered a similar fatal error while updating from drush, but its for having found a different duplicate function, namely, date_api_schema_alter, instead of the theme_date_time_ago mentioned above.

Updating from: Date 6.x-2.0-rc6
Updating to: Date 6.x-2.3

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare date_api_schema_alter() (previously declared in /var/www/example.com/html/sites/all/modules/cck/modules/date/date_api.module:1711) in /var/www/example.com/html/sites/all/modules/cck/modules/date/date_api.install on line 154

Additionally, I also encountered problems during the subsequent run of update.php online, which the OP mentioned did not have any problems.

date module
Update #6005

    * Failed: Some updates are still pending.
      Please re-run the update script.

UPDATE: had to apply the patch in #535270: Upgrading from old versions to 6.x-2.4: update.php never finishes to get Update #6005 to work, although it doesnt look like this is what was causing the drush errors.

karens’s picture

karens commented
Status: Active » Closed (cannot reproduce)

This is a really old report. I can't reproduce any problem using the latest dev version of the code. If there is still a problem in the latest dev version, I need steps to reproduce.