init.d/alsa-utils hangs waiting for /var to be mounted

[Tim Jones]

Binary package hint: alsa-utils

During boot /etc/init.d/alsa-utils, or more specifically /etc/rcS.d/S20alsa-utils, loops forever in:

# Wait for filesystems to show up
while [ ! -d /usr/bin -o ! -d /var/lib/alsa ]; do
    sleep 0.2
done

As my /var is a mount point which has not yet been mounted, it never gets mounted as the above loop blocks all other startup scripts, including the mounting of /var. Deadlock.

Should all local FS mounts be mounted earlier, or alsa-utils started later, I'm not sure. This is a similar problem to one I may have found in resolvconf not being able to access files on a not yet mounted dir, so maybe it's the local FSs that should be mounted earlier.

[Tim Jones (tim-mr-dog)]

I think I may have had an old link laying around in my /etc/rcS.d dir for alsa-utils. That may have been my problem as purging the alsa-utils package and reinstalling has not replaced the link in rcS.d.

Can probably close this bug if this is confirmed.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

What version of which [Debian-based] distro did you have installed? The last Ubuntu alsa-utils package to install into /etc/rcS.d was before dapper (6.06) was released.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Please reopen if reproducible in a default, fresh install of 9.04.