do-release-upgrade fails to configure properly Grub from Precise to Quantal.

Bug #1059231 reported by Martin Constantino–Bodin
28
This bug affects 5 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Hi,

I'm not entirely sure of where I should post this. Please redirect this if I did wrong ☺
As I was encountering a lot of problem with Precise, I thought it would be a good idea to send bug reports from Quantal rather than from Precise. I thus decided to upgrade to Quantal. I've got some minor problems, which I will explain in details after this first description of what did happened after the upgrading.

“do-release-upgrade” seemed to have work well as it suggested me to restart my computer, with no obvious error shown. So I did as it suggested me to do.
Once I restarted, I only got a message from Grub stating this:
error: file not found.
grub rescue>
Without any additional information (by the way, stating *which* file has not been found would be a non-neglectable improvement of Grub ☺), I tried some things, such as “help“, “reboot” or other classical command. “ls” returns me a list of partitions, but I do not know what to do with those… I'm searching on my live-CD ☺
I do not know what happened, but I hope such error won't happen the day of the official release!

By the way, my live-CD seems to work well: if you want me to upload any useful file, just ask!

Some problem I encountered meanwhile that maybe could help (or that should be reported to another software):
→ “upgrade-manager -d” refused to upgrade to Quantal because of “unknown error”. It suggest to send bug report, so I did.
→ Maybe this is linked with the last one, but I encountered some problem of space in my “/” partition. I thus removed some of my space-consuming software to be able to upgrade with “do-release-upgrade”
→ I got a lot of problem with Gnome-shell these last months. Those problems seemed to be caused by contradictory old configuration files (my system fonts keeps changing, my mouse design too, and so did my keyboard mapping. Each time such a “change” happened, the system froze for one or two seconds), maybe this is linked with this problem of upgrade… Anyway, a program that is not able to choose between two configuration file, should choose one (at random if needed) for the entire session and do not change its mind.

I'm working on fixing my computer on this little live-CD, but if meanwhile you need any further information, just ask: it would be a shame that such a bug appears at the final release!

Best,
Martin.

Logan Rosen (logan)
affects: apt (Ubuntu) → ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Martin Constantino–Bodin (martin-bodin) wrote :

Hi!

Me again ☺
I've runned Boot Repair (French version there: http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/boot-repair) and it worked.
It returns me a link that I think can be useful to developpers to solve this upgrading bug: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1252528/

Now I've just one little problem: I cannot connect to my session graphically!
When I try, it returns me the lightdm screen. However, the guest user session works well. I can connect to my session in the terminal, but not with “su <username>” from my guest session. I'll report a bug in Lightdm I think.

Hoping the link generated from boot-repair will help,
Best,
Martin.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan)
tags: added: maverick2natty natty2oneiric oneiric2precise precise2quantal
Revision history for this message
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan) wrote :

I can confirm this bug for Kubuntu. Like the bug reporter the upgrade was performed without any errors or warnings shown. After reboot, a grub rescue prompt was shown:

error: file not found.
grub rescue> _

Luckily, I already have a usb rescue disc handy. A simple grub-install command solves the error. All my grub menu entries are restored and the system boots properly again.
I have experienced this error at least the last 4 times I upgraded my kubuntu installation. I upgraded 2 weeks ago from oneiric to precise, and last week from precise to quantal.

Harddisk configuration
/dev/sda is a Maxtor drive on an addon pci card using a silicon image 3531 serial ata controller
/dev/sdb is a Samsung drive on an onboard Nvidia mcp51 serial ata controller

output of df
$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb9 19198676 17279464 943956 95% /
udev 1528136 4 1528132 1% /dev
tmpfs 616484 908 615576 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 1541204 80 1541124 1% /run/shm
none 102400 0 102400 0% /run/user
/dev/sda3 243056000 220903612 22152388 91% /home
/dev/sdb8 960504 88060 823652 10% /boot
/dev/sdb5 10231392 6068784 4162608 60% /media/personal

Now that I look at this it strikes me as strange that my root and boot dirs are on /dev/sdb, which is on the motherboard sata controller. Could it be that the ubuntu-release-upgrader installs grub on the wrong drive?

output of some more stuff
/dev/disk/by-path$ ll
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part2 -> ../../sdb2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part3 -> ../../sdb3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part5 -> ../../sdb5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part6 -> ../../sdb6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part7 -> ../../sdb7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part8 -> ../../sdb8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:00:0e.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part9 -> ../../sdb9
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:01:00.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:01:00.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 nov 15 17:17 pci-0000:01:00.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part3 -> ../../sda3

$ lspci
<snip>
00:0e.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
<snip>
01:00.0 Mass storage controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3531 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)
<snip>

I added the files present in /var/log/dist-upgrade from the last upgrade as requested by https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingUpdateManager.

Revision history for this message
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Walter Garcia-Fontes (walter-garcia) wrote :

Thanks for reporting this bug and help in making Ubuntu better, and sorry for the long time without an answer. Thanks also Martin and Jan for the detailed report and info. In the case of the original report the relevant logs from /var/log/dist-upgrade are missing to investigate further. In the case of the logs provided by Jan, it seems that grub is installed not in the appropriate place, which may explain why the same problem arises at each upgrade and why grub-install would fix it. In any case if this is still an issue please feel free to mark the report as "confirmed" again, or consider to convert it into a question to get help and install grub in the appropriate place.

Changed in ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan) wrote :

Can you elaborate on why grub is not installed in the appropriate place? How does the release-upgrader decide where to install grub? Ubuntu 13.04 will come along soon enough, so I will test then and mark this bug confirmed if I encounter the issue again.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
Revision history for this message
Walter Garcia-Fontes (walter-garcia) wrote :

Sorry Jan, somehow I got your #8 comment just now, two months after you posted it. Hard to say why grub is not in the right place, probably it comes from your initial installation of Ubuntu . In any case I infer you haven't seen this bug again as you upgraded to 13.04.

Revision history for this message
Jan W (ubuntu-kiekerjan) wrote :

I didn't see this bug on recent upgrades to 13.04 and 13.10. But just now I upgraded to 14.04 so it seems it is still present. Perhaps the previous ubuntu releases did not have a changed grub installation? Anyway, I still suspect the ubuntu upgrader does not install grub in the correct location. A manual installation of grub on my boot disc solves the problem.

Changed in ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu):
status: Expired → Confirmed
tags: added: salamander2tahr
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.