scheduled fsck crashes preventing bootup

[Stan]

Binary package hint: e2fsprogs

I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10 (desktop) on my eeepc 1005ha

Whenever it runs a scheduled fsck scan on boot, fsck crashes (or causes something else to crash?), preventing the system from booting up. Ctrl+alt+del will restart the computer, at which point it boots normally. This has happened both times fsck was run at startup.

Output displayed to the screen:

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16
/dev/sda1: clean, 192114/3506176 files, 1269596/14000639 blocks
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16
/dev/sda5: clean, 53953/6144000 files, 2183615/24559260 blocks
init: ureadahead-other main process (445) terminated with status 4

[Oernie (arne-henningsen)]

I got the same (or at least similar) problem (error message) after my last upgrade (kernel + sreadahead + new package ureadahead). However, on my computer (Dell laptop D630, intel graphic) this error occurs at every boot. I get a black screen so that I cannot log in any more -- also the text/console login does not work and even the "failsafe" mode fails. If I add the kernel option "i915.modeset=0" in GRUB to the "failsafe" mode, I still cannot log in after boot but I can see the start-up messages, where the last line is "init: ureadahead-other main process (762) terminated with status 4". Hence, I am really locked out from my own computer :-( Please help. Thanks, Arne.

[Oernie (arne-henningsen)]

Is it possible that this bug is somehow related to the bug that I reported as bug #483429 ?

[Theodore Ts'o (tytso)]

Stan, what partitions do you have on your system, and what file system types are they?

It's not obvious the crash was caused by fsck, let alone a scheduled fsck. Why do you say that? I don't see any output messages that correspond to an fsck run. An exit status of 4 means (if the process which exited was an fsck process), "File system errors left uncorrected". But if that were the case, there should have been *some* output from fsck indicating why it was unhappy and what file system error it decided it couldn't check on a preen pass.

[Oernie (arne-henningsen)]

I managed to get a login-screen again (probably by booting from a Live-CD, switching to the Ubuntu system by "chroot", and removing and re-installing the packages "sreadahead" and "ureadahead"), but I still see on the 8th console (Ctrl-Alt-F8):

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16
/dev/sda1: clean, [...]
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16
 * Stopping the Firestarter firewall...
/dev/sda6: clean, [...]
init: ureadahead-other main process (924) terminated with status 4
 * Preparing restricted drivers...
[...]
   ...done.

Maybe this helps you to find the problem.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

that's weird, it looks like your boot continues normally after the fsck

[Stan (killistan)]

i have a / and a /home partition (sda1 and sda5 respectively) as well as a swap partition.
I am using the ext4 filesystem

It is possible that I am just not waiting long enough (I waited at least 5 minutes though), but if that is the case i did not have to wait nearly as long in 9.04... (I also had the option to skip the check which I don't remember seeing)

Next time it happens (every 39 boots I think?) I'll try to wait 15 minutes or so too see if it ever does boot, but it definately appears to hang, at least. I assume that is related to the status 4 somehow.

Maybe the fsck prevents or interferes with ureadahead doing its job somehow?

[Krastanov (krastanov-stefan)]

you can force a check with
sudo touch /forcefsck

I have experienced the same crash, but was not able to reproduce it.
Also having those messages about ureadahead all the time: look at Bug #484677 - it may something in common.

[Stan (killistan)]

Thanks for the sudo touch /forcefsck tip.
Doing that didn't cause the problem, it ran fsck normally and then booted up normally, which i don't really understand why.
I can't really tell if its related to any other bugs, googling ureadahead status 4 just gives me the impression that it is just a warning...

[Stan (killistan)]

:-\ fsck ran at boot again but this time it booted normally, I suppose for whatever reason it's not a problem for me anymore...

[Krastanov (krastanov-stefan)]

same here...
I'll mark it as invalid for now.

[Oernie (arne-henningsen)]

I would not mark this issue as invalid, because I had this problem as well and finally my system became even unusable (which is very bad since I have to use it for my work). So, I had to re-install Kubuntu 9.10 and everything runs fine now. Since this issue and a few other problems occurred after upgrading from 9.04 (Jaunty) to 9.10 (Karmic), I think that it is caused by a bug in the (dist-)upgrade procedure. BTW: I originally installed Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) on this computer, then changed to Kubuntu and then upgraded to 9.04 (Jaunty). All this worked fine but I mention it here, because the upgrade to 9.10 (Karmic) might be affected by the previous upgrade. I have the non-working system still installed on another partition. So please let me know if you have any questions.

[Justin J Stark (fromlaunchpad-justinjstark)]

I have been having this problem lately too.

[zasq (zasq)]

I used to have this problem with a prior version of the kernel, but only a few times, on a Dell Inspiron 1501. After upgrading to kernel 2.6.31-17-generic it became very bad. Booting up now always ends up in a blank screen. I have to boot in failsafe mode. Even though I can't really boot the system in failsafe mode (it ends up with the recovery menu which then is literally overwritten by the messages of the filesystem check before it freezes and the led of the hd turns off), the system will start normally when I afterwards do a normal start.

From what I read in several forums, there are two possible things that cause this: one is a bug in modemmanager, it helped some people to uninstall it. It didn't work for me, though. The other one is a bug in fsck because it is during the checking of the filesystem that the freeze occurs. But the filesystem should only be checked every 30th time a partition is booted and now I have this problem with every boot! Besides, sudo touch /forcefsck didn't work for me either.
Could it be that this is a usplash or a kernel bug?

Has anyone solved this? Please let me know, if I can provide any more information. I'll downgrade the kernel and test if the problem remains and post it here.

[Oernie (arne-henningsen)]

zasq, you could try the solution posted at:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1343648

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Ubuntu because there has been no activity for 60 days.]