Installing updates freezes while setting up grub-pc

[Don Kirkby]

I'm installing updates for the last couple of weeks on a virtual machine running under VirtualBox. It got to Setting up grub-pc (2.02-beta2-9ubuntu1)... then it stayed there for 25 minutes before I shut down the virtual box and restored a snapshot.
Running top shows me that aptd is running at about 25% CPU on a 4 CPU virtual machine.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: update-manager 1:0.196.12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-30.54-generic 3.13.11.2
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-30-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Aug 1 10:36:16 2014
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/update-manager
GsettingsChanges:
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'show-details' b'true'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'first-run' b'false'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'window-width' b'484'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'launch-time' b'1406912611'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-05-20 (72 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.4
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: update-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mark (gullinbursti)]

I also have this problem, but I let mine run for way longer than 25 minutes. More like 5-6 hours. Is that a normal amount of time for this particualr installation or has something gone wonky?

-Mark

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Stephen D Metcalfe (mechatism)]

I am a software developer and have this problem on multiple machines. Update freezes at "Setting up grub-pc (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.1)". The window goes grey and does not continue even if left overnight. Each machine is an x86 and has multiple disks with versions of Ubuntu installed (12.04/14.04 32/64 bit). The version most affected seems to be 14.04 64 bit.

[Stephen D Metcalfe (mechatism)]

I am a software developer and have this problem on multiple machines. Update freezes at "Setting up grub-pc (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.1)". The window goes grey and does not continue even if left overnight. Each machine is an x86 and has multiple disks with versions of Ubuntu installed (12.04/14.04 32/64 bit). The version most affected seems to be 14.04 64 bit.

[Paul BROWN (frozenzia)]

Here's a screenshot of mine, and I can provide any extra info needed. I am using UbuntuMATE 14.04 32-bit version and see this on several machines. Seems to be due to grub setup wanting to open a "terminal"-like window to ask for user input and not being able to??

[Paul BROWN (frozenzia)]

This is a very fatal bug for me, as the end result is eventually a reset of yhe system, after which my system won't boot up anfd ends up at a grub rescue prompt. Not sure if this is b/c we're switching the default order of tje partitions so that swap is first, everything else is after that. I have to run boot-repair cd to fix this.

[Zarniwoop (david-sjolin)]

I guess this won't help very many people, but if you're encountering this in VirtualBox like I do you can get passed the update if you have a backup of your image.

Paul Brown wrote that he thinks that grub setup wants to open a terminal-like window. Thank you for that comment. Because of that I tried doing "sudo apt-get upgrade" in a terminal window instead of using the software updater. And as he had predicted, after a while I got a window looking similar to the traditional Linux installation gui where I got to choose which harddrive or partition to put grub on, I chose one and then the update completed. I just rebooted and seems to work fine.

Of course this doesn't solve the problem for anyone who gets it on a "real" computer and/or without backup, but I thought it worth mentioning here for people using VirtualBox.

[Mike Simpson (michaelsimpson5)]

Finally! Took a while to find this solution. I had a corrupted VirtualBox Ubuntu VM, used a clone image and ran into this problem when running updates via the GUI. Running it in a terminal window solved my problem. Thank you Paul Brown.

The prompt suggested that I load it on both partitions unlike Zarniwoop. Can that lead to any problems?