diff --git a/advanced/Scripts/updatecheck.sh b/advanced/Scripts/updatecheck.sh
index 44f21419..23abf7a6 100755
--- a/advanced/Scripts/updatecheck.sh
+++ b/advanced/Scripts/updatecheck.sh
@@ -50,9 +50,10 @@ rm -f "/etc/pihole/GitHubVersions"
 rm -f "/etc/pihole/localbranches"
 rm -f "/etc/pihole/localversions"
 
-# Create new versions file if it does not exist
 VERSION_FILE="/etc/pihole/versions"
-touch "${VERSION_FILE}"
+
+# Truncates the file to zero length if it exists to clear it up, otherwise creates an empty file.
+truncate -s 0 "${VERSION_FILE}"
 chmod 644 "${VERSION_FILE}"
 
 # if /pihole.docker.tag file exists, we will use it's value later in this script
diff --git a/advanced/Scripts/utils.sh b/advanced/Scripts/utils.sh
index d000a6db..51f5db36 100755
--- a/advanced/Scripts/utils.sh
+++ b/advanced/Scripts/utils.sh
@@ -30,9 +30,6 @@ addOrEditKeyValPair() {
   local key="${2}"
   local value="${3}"
 
-  # touch file to prevent grep error if file does not exist yet
-  touch "${file}"
-
   if grep -q "^${key}=" "${file}"; then
     # Key already exists in file, modify the value
     sed -i "/^${key}=/c\\${key}=${value}" "${file}"
diff --git a/test/test_any_utils.py b/test/test_any_utils.py
index 43e637f3..e4646572 100644
--- a/test/test_any_utils.py
+++ b/test/test_any_utils.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ def test_key_val_replacement_works(host):
     """Confirms addOrEditKeyValPair either adds or replaces a key value pair in a given file"""
     host.run("""
     source /opt/pihole/utils.sh
+    touch ./testoutput
     addOrEditKeyValPair "./testoutput" "KEY_ONE" "value1"
     addOrEditKeyValPair "./testoutput" "KEY_TWO" "value2"
     addOrEditKeyValPair "./testoutput" "KEY_ONE" "value3"