RAID configuration list is empty when booting installer using ventoy (or unetbootin)

[Luca Bennati]

When trying to configure a software RAID in Ubuntu Server 22.04.3, the "Create software raid (md) disk" dialog box looks empty.
The "Devices" list shows some browsable elements (moving up and down with arrow keys shows a list of blank lines, number is proportional to the available partitions) but there's no chance to read any of those lines.
Screenshot is attached
Updating default installer to 23.10.1 does not solve the issue.
Changing the system font does not solve the issue.

[Luca Bennati (iu2frl)]

This issue was also reported by other users: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/761705/ubuntu-raid-configuration-devices-list-is-empty

[Olivier Gayot (ogayot)]

Hello and thank you for your bug report,

This is interesting. I'm not able to reproduce it for now.

Are you able to provide a copy of the /var/log/installer directory (+ the output of journactl -b) after you see the empty drop-down menu?

You can access a shell using the F2 key (or navigate to [ Help ] -> Enter shell during installation.

Thank you,
Olivier

[Luca Bennati (iu2frl)]

Here you go

[Olivier Gayot (ogayot)]

Thank you. There seems to be an inconsistency between:

* the logic that determines whether RAID is available
* the logic that determines which partitions/disks would be suitable for RAID

And I believe that the code reacts poorly to how Ventoy affects the mapping of block devices.

Would you mind trying to flash the installer image directly to a USB device instead of using Ventoy ; and see if it makes a difference? It feels like it would.

Thanks,
Olivier

[Luca Bennati (iu2frl)]

Unfortunately that was not the case, I created a bootable USB using unetbootin and Ubuntu Server 22.04 (installer detected the most recent version and I confirmed the upgrade), still the raid list is empty (see picture). I can still move up and down between multiple blank lines

[Olivier Gayot (ogayot)]

Thanks! Ah bummer, I was confident because I was able to reproduce the issue when booting with Ventoy. I'll have to dig more but I suspect a DM related issue.

I'll see if I can get a working copy of unetbootin (last version built for Ubuntu is from 2016 so I'm not sure...).

It's a wild guess but I imagine unetbootin could be messing up with DM in a way similar to Ventoy. May I ask you to try one more after flashing the image using dd?

Thanks,
Olivier

[Luca Bennati (iu2frl)]

Creating an image using DD solved the issue

[Tal Levy (ltal)]

This bug is not affected by the USB creation method. It occurs also when the ISO file is mounted as virtual media on a server with IPMI. This bug is a regression which effectively blocks the creation of RAID devices and it should be given higher priority.

[Charles Low (charles-low)]

I tried to run the Ubuntu installer on a Dell R720 with a USB stick and the problem persists even not using IPMI, so it is not just affecting virtual media.

Note that the PERC RAID card is flashed to IT mode

[Petar Barisic (bron-dev22)]

Just wanted to add - bug reproduced on ThinkSystem SR645 V3 with 440-8e SAS/SATA 12Gb HBA and 2 x NVMe U.2 disks.
Since we did use Ventoy for previous installations (and had same bug with all 22.04 manual installs) in office I reproduced it with Ventoy, regular USB and network and virtual media with ubuntu-22.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso.
Names of any partition created on drives are not visible in lists in either LVM or MD windows.