init: Failed to spawn rc-sysinit main process: unable to open console: Input/output error.

[Derek Simkowiak]

Binary package hint: upstart

I have an Ubuntu 10.04 KVM virtual machine set to launch automatically at boot (using option: "autostart").

When my host computer boots up, the virtual machine launch fails. It freezes at boot, with this error message (right after the root disk fsck):

init: Failed to spawn rc-sysinit main process: Unable to open console: Input/output error.

(That is the message on the autostarted virtual machine. The host computer works fine.)

The problem is intermittent. It has happened once in the last 5 reboots.

I believe this bug may be related to bug #543506, because users are seeing that same error text in their system logs. But in this case, the virtual machine won't boot up at all.

Another user reported this bug on real, physical hardware (not a virtual machine):
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1495569

Thus, I do not think the problem has anything to do with virtualization, or with hardware.

My virtual machine is a JeOS install with a LAMP stack. There is no GUI desktop, just a text-mode login console shell. The video card is an emulated cirrus card.

This issue might be the same issue in Question #109171:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/109171

(I don't read Spanish, but that thread references using a "quiet splash" option that was also listed in bug #543506. I don't know what to do with that option, or if that is a confirmed workaround.)

On the VM:
root@ubuntu:~# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Release: 10.04
root@ubuntu:~# apt-cache policy upstart
upstart:
  Installed: 0.6.5-6
  Candidate: 0.6.5-6
  Version table:
 *** 0.6.5-6 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
root@ubuntu:~#

[Mike Hayward (mh-launchpad)]

I have the same error occuring. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server installed on over twenty identical computers. Sometimes they boot, sometimes they only come up part way. When they don't boot, I get the following in the syslog:

init: Failed to spawn rc main process: unable to open console: Input/output error

My systems are generally headless since they are servers, not sure if that makes it more likely to happen or not, but I am not running any service other than ssh from base install and it does this regularly to me. Makes it impossible to rely on it as a linux server if it can hang nondeterministically at boot. Imagine firing up a cluster of a dozen machines and having to obtain a monitor and keyboard each time one or two hang to diagnose and fix the problem. Doesn't work so well remotely :-)

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

I hit this one during maverick alpha2 ISO testing. It seems to be random though, rebooted and it worked.

[Tony McConnell (amnw14545)]

As suggested in 543506, the following does appear to work. Have had to do this on 20 machines destined for site, as we're under some pressure to have them delivered:

for file in /etc/init/*.conf; do sed -i 's/^console output/\#console output/' $file; done
sed -i 's/start on filesystem and net-device-up IFACE=lo/start on filesystem and started rsyslog and net-device-up IFACE=lo/' /etc/init/rc-sysinit.conf

sed -i 's/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""/GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="init='\''\/sbin\/init --verbose'\''"/' /etc/default/grub
update-grub

Numerous reboots seem to show that it's working ok; prior to this we would end up with an undefined run level as reported by the 'runlevel' command, and our rc2 scripts wouldn't execute.

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

This deserves more investigation. Marking Confirmed and setting Importance to High, as it prevents normal boot up.

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

Looks like this is actually a dup of bug #554172, which was fixed in August.