boot-repair stuck, huge log file

[hodja]

On ubuntu 14.04 (Dual boot with windows 8.1) latest version of boot-repair is stuck at "Scanning systems, this may require several minutes" screen. Progress bar won't move. In the meantime log file in /var/log/boot-sav/log/ keeps swelling to a huge 2 gigabytes. Killing the process won't stop swelling of the file.

----------- Bug present in boot-repair versiosn 4ppa26 , 27, 28, 30 et 31. Fixed since 4ppa32.

[YannUbuntu (yannubuntu)]

hi Hodja, thanks for the report.
Please can you provide the following details:

1) can you reproduce this bug each time you use Boot-Repair ?
2) does this happen when you use Boot-Repair from installed session, or live-session (DVD or liveUSB), or both ?
3) can you reproduce with latest Boot-Repair-Disk (it includes a slightly older package of Boot-Repair than the PPA)
4) how exactly do you try to kill the process ?
5) what is the exact filename of the huge file ? (probably something like /var/log/boot-sav/log/2014-12-30__xxx/boot-repair.log ?)
6) what is the contents of this file? (please copy-paste the first 2000 lines into a text file, and attach it to this bug report).
7) about how many minutes did it take to reach 2GB ?
8) what is the output of the following commands:
sudo parted -l
sudo boot-repair -i

Remark: be careful do not let your HDD become full, if this happens, delete the huge files from live-disc. (eg via "gksudo nautilus")

[hodja (ehodja)]

Hi YannUbuntu, thanks for the reply
Here are the answers to your questions:

1) can you reproduce this bug each time you use Boot-Repair ?
Yes, tried 4-5 times all same results except log file was growing even larger when I had to reboot to stop

2) does this happen when you use Boot-Repair from installed session, or live-session (DVD or liveUSB), or both ?
Both

3) can you reproduce with latest Boot-Repair-Disk (it includes a slightly older package of Boot-Repair than the PPA)
I can only run the PPA version from live cd as cannot boot into ubuntu on HD anymore (trying to repair boot)

4) how exactly do you try to kill the process ?
Sudo Kill PID (Killed glade2script, %100 Cpu usage)

5) what is the exact filename of the huge file ? (probably something like /var/log/boot-sav/log/2014-12-30__xxx/boot-repair.log ?)
/var/log/boot-sav/log/2014-12-31__06h51boot-repair43/boot-repair.log

6) what is the contents of this file? (please copy-paste the first 2000 lines into a text file, and attach it to this bug report).
Attached. after the copied text the rest of the original file is blank

7) about how many minutes did it take to reach 2GB ?
abot 5-6 mins but it was growing bigger I had to reboot to stop. Killing PID did not stop it

8) what is the output of the following commands:
sudo parted -l
sudo boot-repair -i
===============================================
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo boot-repair -i
boot-repair version : 4ppa28
boot-sav version : 4ppa28
glade2script version : 3.2.2~ppa47~saucy
boot-sav-extra version : 4ppa28
boot-repair is executed in live-session (Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS, trusty, Ubuntu, i686)
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- maybe-ubiquity
ls: cannot access /home/usr/.config: No such file or directory
This live-session is not EFI-compatible.
SecureBoot maybe enabled.
====================================================
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD5000AAKX-6 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 368MB 367MB primary ntfs
 2 368MB 131GB 131GB primary ntfs boot
 3 131GB 500GB 369GB extended
 5 131GB 498GB 367GB logical ext4
 6 498GB 500GB 2145MB logical linux-swap(v1)

Model: ATA WDC WD5000AAKS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 500GB 500GB primary ext3

Model: USB USB DISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 2013MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 2013MB 2012MB primary ntfs boot

Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[YannUbuntu (yannubuntu)]

thank you. it seems to be an issue of the lsblk commands.
I have temporarily disabled those 2 commands in the PPA. (boot-repair version 4pp29)

Please :
1) indicate the output of the following four commands (check if any strange behavior):
LANGUAGE=C LC_ALL=C lsblk -o NAME,TYPE,FSTYPE,SIZE,LABEL,MODEL,UUID
LANGUAGE=C LC_ALL=C lsblk -o KNAME,ROTA,RO,RM,STATE,MOUNTPOINT
lsblk -o NAME,TYPE,FSTYPE,SIZE,LABEL,MODEL,UUID
lsblk -o KNAME,ROTA,RO,RM,STATE,MOUNTPOINT

2) retry with last PPA version, and tell me if you reproduce the bug or not.

3) from live-session, install Boot-Repair from PPA (do not start it yet), type "gksudo gedit /usr/share/boot-sav/gui-scan.sh", uncomment line 63 (#LANGUAGE=C LC_ALL=C lsblk -o KNAME,ROTA,RO,RM,STATE,MOUNTPOINT) by removing the # at the start of the line, save the file, then run "boot-repair" and tell me if you reproduce the bug or not (if you reproduce, please send me the 2000lines)

[hodja (ehodja)]

Hi again
1- Output of the commands attached.
3- Tried after removing the comment and boot-repair started fine
thanks

[YannUbuntu (yannubuntu)]

ok thanks
the bug seems to be due to the "NAME" argument of lsblk.
I will replace it with KNAME in next versions of Boot-Repair.
Please reopen the bug if you reproduce the bug with version 4ppa30 or above.

[Normand C (gemnoc)]

I just had this bug happen on Ubuntu 14.04.1 installed on an SSD. I used boot-repair last month because I have a dual boot with Ubuntu 12.04 and I was unable to overwrite Precise's Grub otherwise.

Opening boot-repair today, it quickly filled up my SSD - it was not a log file, but a whole folder that contained many folders, each folder for each of my partitions (sda to sda6, etc.), and a UUID folder containing large .img files. It got up to 20.8GB before I stopped it. I removed all traces of boot-repair from my system, so I'm not sure if the version that did this was ppa29 or ppa30.

[YannUbuntu (yannubuntu)]

hi Normand,
the img files are MBR backups, they should not exceed a couple of MB.
Please could you look at your log folders (/var/log/boot-sav in Linux partitions, /boot-sav in Windows partitions), if you still have some, and check if the size of the img files are larger than 2MB each ?
then please delete those log folders, and try to reproduce the bug with latest PPA version , and open a new bug report if you can reproduce.