Lucid partitioner graphic appears to freeze at 50%

[Erick Brunzell]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

This is one of those minor "cosmetic" bugs that I'm almost reluctant to report, but here goes. Using the iso-testing build of 04/29 and performing an "auto-resize" when I begin the actual resizing (step 4 of 7) and the "progress gui" pops up it almost immediately goes to 50% and it then remains there until the resizing is complete.

However the resizing does complete successfully in the expected amount of time (5 to 10 minutes). During this the gui does also indicate "please wait" so I would think this is very minor, although I can imagine someone assuming that the partitioner is "frozen" if they get impatient. I would however think "please wait" means please wait :^)

Also please disregard the gparted stuff after the end of the install, I was checking something unrelated.

I'll spin up an older CD (probably the 04/27) to see if this is a regression or something I'd just previously overlooked.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: ubiquity 2.2.24
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Apr 29 11:48:06 2010
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I checked this with a 10/27 iso-tesing i386 Live CD and it did exist even then. Obviously something so insignificant I'd overlooked it previously.

IMHO this is something that may at worst deserve a look before 10.04.1.

I suppose it would be best to actually see "progress" or lose the graphic altogether. I'll watch this behavior in 10.10.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I see this behavior still exists iso-testing the pre-alpha 1 i386 Live CD. Just to recap:

The graphic indicating partitioning progress goes from zero to 50% almost immediately and stays there until it's done rather than showing actual progress.

Very minor but I can imagine an impatient noob aborting the process thinking that no progress is occurring.

If you're just patient the partitioning does complete successfully.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Oopsie! Should say "iso-testing the pre-alpha 1 Maverick i386 Live CD."

Must need more coffee ;^)

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I do still see this with the third Maverick Alpha 2 i386 build.

I'd really like you to consider the following:

1) When the graphic appears to be frozen at 50% for a long time noobs will consider that "it's stuck"!

2) The amount of time it takes to complete the operation depends greatly on the amount of data to be moved, etc.

3) Aborting can cause data loss!

I really think we should drop the progress bar and percentage altogether until we perfect it. Just stick with, "WAIT". And possibly a stronger warning.

Also consider who uses "auto-resize". Noobs of course :^)

So they sit and watch, and after an hour or so they think IT'S STUCK!

We're not putting our noob shoes on here ;^/

I seriously think this needs much stronger consideration. Besides, I dozed off earlier and dreamed that Evan Dandrea was wishing for a bug to fix.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I couldn't see how else to bump this from Lucid to Maverick so I used the "nominate" tag.

Perhaps I should change the title?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This is a very long-standing issue, largely because it isn't easy to fix - bug 19732. (The installer's design means that a progress dialog is the only type of dialog available for use here without blocking on the dialog itself, so there's no easy fix; it might well be easier to figure out how to get progress through from resize2fs than to rearrange the dialogs ...)