Update from 5.24 to 5.3 failure?

Some comments and a question on my experience updating from 5.2.4 to 5.3:

1. Upon starting the update, the page automatically shows something to the effect of “already running update”, which is confusing.

2. Once the update starts, you have to constantly shift-refresh to see when it ends, it won’t automatically refresh on it’s own. Not good, considering it doesn’t get done until after like 10-15 minutes.

3. Once the initial update is done, you get a page to finish updating the database and that it might take a long time. Well, that part went real quick.

4. Once you get back to the dashboard, there’s a note that the update failed, and you should try to re-run it. Except, re-running does everything above again.

5. ssh to the root wp directory reveals a ‘stuck’ .maintenance file. Deleting the file removes the error message, however, attempting to re-install 5.3 results with all the same indicators – again – and you still have to delete the .maintenance file.

6. Manually downloaded the tar.gz and expanded it, then diffed it against what already existed. Seems like all the files copied over properly. It just never deletes the .maintenance file.

Went through the same motions on four different sites… this was not fun. Is there a bug here somewhere? Possible permissions thing?