Intrepid Bootup dumped into busybox console

Bug #244608 reported by Richard Kleeman
8
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
linux (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

In newly installed Intrepid
Standard boot up results in being dumped into the busybox prompt (initramfs).
If I type exit then a normal bootup resumes.
Error hard to locate from the log files. The only suspicious entry found in /var/log/messages:

Jul 1 12:07:46 amd64 kernel: [ 995.285862] gvfs-fuse-daemo[6477] general protection ip:7f79a41ffa5a sp:7fffade3bb40 error:0 in libpthread-2.8.90.so[7f79a41f7000+17000]

This was suspect because it had the correct time on it for when the dump into busybox occurred. I have attached the dmesg file

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :
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Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote : We need more information

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please include the output of the command 'uname -a' in your next response. It should be one, long line of text which includes the exact kernel version you're running, as well as the CPU architecture.
2. Please run the command 'dmesg > dmesg.log' after experiencing the issue and attach the resulting file 'dmesg.log' to this bug report.
3. Please run the command 'sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log' and attach the resulting file 'lspci-vvnn.log' to this bug report.
For your reference, the full description of procedures for kernel-related bug reports is available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies. Thanks in advance!

Changed in linux-meta:
status: New → Incomplete
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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

uname -a gives
Linux amd64 2.6.26-5-generic #1 SMP Sun Aug 3 01:26:00 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

dmesg attached

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

lspci -vvnn attached

Changed in linux:
assignee: nobody → ubuntu-kernel-team
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Incomplete → Triaged
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Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

OK I tested the 2.6.27-1 kernel and the problem persists. In addition it is now saying it cannot find the swap partition within busybox after typing "exit". If I press "enter" anyway (as suggested the boot appears normal. Please let me know if you need any further tests done. I have a suspicion given where the boot stops that the scsi disk driver may be a possible problem candidate. scsi drives are not that common so this may expalin why this bug has not been seen more widely.....

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Dan Bishop (danbishop) wrote :

I have the same problem with AMD64 build of alpha 5, also present in previous versions. I have an Asus M2N-sli motherboard and nvidia graphics card and a SATA dvd drive....

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Dan Bishop (danbishop) wrote :

This appears to have been fixed, marked as such.

Changed in linux:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

Dan,
Could you explain the fix released? Is it the latest kernel you are referring to?

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

Problem still present as of October 5 fully updated Intrepid system.

Changed in linux:
status: Fix Released → Confirmed
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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

I have made some progress in debugging this by adding the debug option to the grub boot line.

This produces a file /tmp/initramfs.debug which can be seen when at the busybox prompt

This file contains the following significant line near the end:

panic ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/04432635-ee53-4a9e-bf49-231c672b38ac does not exist. Dropping to shell.

I checked and in fact /dev/disk/by-uuid/04432635-ee53-4a9e-bf49-231c672b38ac does exist and is pointing to /dev/sda10

When I type exit a normal boot resumes HOWEVER the disk with uuid 04432635-ee53-4a9e-bf49-231c672b38ac is mounted as /dev/sdb10 not /dev/sda10 as it is in hardy.

I executed sudo blkid after this normal boot and obtained the following strange output

/dev/sda5: UUID="6707952b-349c-4cc4-96e4-34147b25930d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" LABEL="/scratch"
/dev/sda6: UUID="f8048a1c-68e7-4f26-9d6e-0e43de790488" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda7: UUID="2f0175ef-bd42-41e2-8e32-c92a155da5ab" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda9: LABEL="/home" UUID="2854cb27-da6e-44bd-ba7c-18879b5621e3" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="2aed16dc-cfb2-49c7-b656-ae238b383997" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="f8048a1c-68e7-4f26-9d6e-0e43de790488" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="2f0175ef-bd42-41e2-8e32-c92a155da5ab" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb9: LABEL="/home" UUID="2854cb27-da6e-44bd-ba7c-18879b5621e3" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb8: TYPE="swap" UUID="b32dca01-b5bf-47df-bdab-7c33db2ad874"
/dev/sdb10: UUID="04432635-ee53-4a9e-bf49-231c672b38ac" TYPE="ext3"

Compare this with the hardy output:

/dev/sda5: UUID="2aed16dc-cfb2-49c7-b656-ae238b383997" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="6707952b-349c-4cc4-96e4-34147b25930d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" LABEL="/scratch"
/dev/sda6: UUID="f8048a1c-68e7-4f26-9d6e-0e43de790488" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda7: UUID="2f0175ef-bd42-41e2-8e32-c92a155da5ab" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda8: TYPE="swap" UUID="b32dca01-b5bf-47df-bdab-7c33db2ad874"
/dev/sda9: LABEL="/home" UUID="2854cb27-da6e-44bd-ba7c-18879b5621e3" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda10: UUID="04432635-ee53-4a9e-bf49-231c672b38ac" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

By way of information I have two disks on this system which are seen in hardy as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb

I will attach the /etc/fstab files for both intrepid and hardy

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

and the hardy /etc/fstab

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

Problem still apparent in the release candidate version of Intrepid.

I have attached the initramfs.debug file

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Jean-Paul (jeanpaul145) wrote :

Just tried the Intrepid AMD64 desktop liveCD.
It still crashes to busybox, see the attachment for a photo.

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Jean-Paul (jeanpaul145) wrote :

To be fair, the laptop hdd is broken (I'm going to send it to the manufacturer for repair/replacement) but I don't see how that could affect the booting process of a liveCD, especially seeing as how it is simply not detected by the BIOS (the primary master is set to "NONE" while the prim. slave is set to my optical drive).

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Jean-Paul (jeanpaul145) wrote :

I tried booting the laptop with the Intrepid i386 version of the daily build of October 15th.
Exactly the same result.

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

This problem now affects two of my systems. The second system is i386 while the first (see above) was amd64. Both systems stop because the root partition is not found. Both systems have scsi hard disks so I am guessing this is some kind of scsi disk driver issue.

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Richard Kleeman (kleeman) wrote :

On the Ubuntu forums a workaround for this bug was posted. It consists of passing the kernel option

rootdelay=130

at the boot.

I can confirm that this works for both systems mentioned above

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Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

This is most likely a duplicate of bug 290153 so I'm marking it as such. Please continue to follow up with this issue at that report. Thanks.

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote : Kernel team bugs

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

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