"Install" boot option hangs at timezone selection

[Mike Perrin]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

When choosing the "Install" boot option on the 9.04 beta i386 CD, the installer hung after the timezone (America/Los Angeles) was selected using the city menu list and Continue was clicked. Installation was successful when booting into the Live CD and using the Install icon. I tried again to use the CD install boot option and it hung at the same place. The hang continued after the Quit button was clicked and the resulting dialog box answered. The CD passed the integrity check.

Hardware: MSI K7T Turbo2 KT133A chipset motherboard, Athlon XP1700+ CPU, 784MB RAM, 40GB HD, with ATI Radeon 7000 AGP video card and NEC chipset USB 2.0 PCI card.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Does the computer still seem to be alive after the hang - for example, can you still move the mouse cursor? If so, perhaps you could press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and try to copy /var/log/syslog out somewhere else from the command line so that you can attach it to this bug?

[Mike Perrin (mperrin)]

The system remains alive, only the installer hangs. syslog is attached.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Odd, no indication in that log of what's going on. Still, I have no further questions I can think of to clarify the situation for the moment, so I'll mark this Confirmed for now ...

[Mike Perrin (mperrin)]

This problem is limited to the IDE interface on the K7T Turbo2 motherboard. The install boot option proceeded normally through timezone selection on three other systems: a Jetway V4MDMP with Athlon 2000+, a Biostar MCP6P-M2+ with Sempron 3400+, and a Biostar M7VKQ with Duron 800. It hung consistently on the K7T Turbo2 using four different brand/model CD burners and one DVD burner in addition to the original Mitsumi CD burner. I even tried installing only one of the two DIMM modules at a time in case it might be a subtle memory problem, to no effect. Finally, it succeeded on the K7T Turbo2 when I used an external USB DVD burner drive (through the painfully slow on-board USB 1.1 port). It seems to me that pretty much leaves the IDE controller, the BIOS, and/or the IDE driver as the culprit.

Perhaps we should call this a "won't fix", close it and move on. My apologies for sending you on what appears to be a hardware wild goose chase.

[Trey Ethridge (tethridge)]

I was able to duplicate this bug using my Dell D600 laptop. I'm not sure of the motherboard used within it. I would assume that this may be a problem on newer versions of this Dell laptop too (D610, D620, D630, etc).

[Cory Kidd (coryk)]

I'm having the same problem on a Epia Nano-ITX N5000E LVDS motherboard. I can't get past the time zone selection step. I got the spinning cursor when I selected Forward. I waited a while and found that the machine is still responsive. I can now select other time zones from the map and/or use the dropdown menus. However the Back and Forward buttons are grayed out; the only option from here is to Quit.

[Cory Kidd (coryk)]

I have the same issue on a Via EPIA-N5000E LVDS motherboard. Installing from CD hangs at the timezone choice. The system is still responsive and I can choose other timezones, but the Forward and Back buttons are grayed out and I can't move beyond it. Seem to be getting past it in the Live CD install.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Official support for Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" has ended. If this problem is still occurring on Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" please file a new bug report so that we can get a new set of logs and system info.