grub install fails during install of Ubuntu Studio 13.10 Beta2 64bit on Asus EEEPC 1215B

[Dr Paul Brewer]

1. What happened: An install of Ubuntu Studio 13.10 Beta-2 failed on a ASUS EEEPC 1215B netbook and I am mostly trusting the system to fill in the rest of the bug report. In case it does not the problem was in the grub install step.

The system had a wired connection to the internet and downloaded updates before it failed. It also fails if the network connection is pulled. If it is started in "try it" mode a wifi configuration can be set up but the wifi configuration does not persist.

The laptop previously had an Ubuntu Studio 12 as the only operating system. It has UEFI and the USB drive with the Ubuntu Studio 13.10 Beta 2 was booted in UEFI mode. The new Studio 13 was installed with "erase/replace".

At the grub install failure I was given a modal dialogue by the installer there was a critical error and given some dialogue boxes to click through to report the error, and then asked to log in to launchpad.

2. What I expected to happen: I expected Ubuntu Studio to install normally. Also the system must have had some working grub in the MBR from the previous install of Ubuntu 12.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: ubiquity 2.15.20
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-11.4-lowlatency 3.11.3
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-11-lowlatency x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.336ubuntu1
Date: Mon Oct 7 01:11:16 2013
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntustudio.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash --
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu-Studio 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Beta amd64 (20131006)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=linux
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Dr Paul Brewer (drpaulbrewer)]

CLUE:

Tried the chrooted grub reintall and manual fix procedures at http://superuser.com/questions/376470/how-to-reinstall-grub2-efi

" apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64 " fails with "Killed" and an error about missing systemd

/bin/efibootmgr is present in the chrooted environment

manual fix "efibootmgr -c --disk /dev/sda --part 1" also fails with "Killed"

Nothing else, just "Killed". No hint of what killed it.

dmesg contains an OOPS
note: efibootmgr[3424] exited with preempt_count 1
BUG: scheduling while atomic: efibootmgr/3424/0x10000002
Module list.....

Will attach the dmesg file if possible