Couldn't create home directory: File exists

[RüdiCoerdt]

Sorry to call this a new bug as there were several similar older bugs offered to choose from, yet I don't know if they're identical. I'm not sure where in the process the crash occurred and if the rudimentary installation is usable at all.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: ubiquity 2.8.7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.287
Date: Fri Dec 2 12:04:38 2011
LiveMediaBuild: Lubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Exception during installation:
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: Traceback (most recent call last):
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1641, in <module>
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: install.run()
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 55, in wrapper
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: func(self)
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 160, in run
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: self.configure_plugins()
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 499, in configure_plugins
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: raise install_misc.InstallStepError("Plugin %s failed with code %s" % (plugin.NAME, ret))
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py: InstallStepError: Plugin usersetup failed with code 1
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu plugininstall.py:

[RüdiCoerdt (ruediger-coerdt)]

OK, found it out myself: looks like the installer crashed when it found the user's home directory existing as I installed on an existing partition and which I didn't ask to format.
The question remains why it crashes instead of exiting gracefully and continuing to finish the install.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: Adding new user `coerdtr' (1000) with group `coerdtr' ...
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: Creating home directory `/home/coerdtr' ...
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: Stopped: Couldn't create home directory `/home/coerdtr': File exists.
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup:
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: Removing directory `/home/coerdtr' ...
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: Removing user `coerdtr' ...
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: Removing group `coerdtr' ...
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: groupdel: group 'coerdtr' does not exist
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu user-setup: adduser: `groupdel coerdtr' returned error code 6. Exiting.
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu ubiquity: chpasswd: (user coerdtr) pam_chauthtok() failed, error:
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu ubiquity: Authentication token manipulation error
Dec 2 12:02:36 ubuntu ubiquity: chpasswd: (line 1, user coerdtr) password not changed

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Larry Wilson (larry2311)]

Installer fails late in the install process. This is a show stopper. I cannot install 12.04, so am reverting back to 11.10.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Normally adduser would handle this fine. Is it possible that /home/coerdtr is a symbolic link, e.g. to an encrypted filesystem somewhere? That would be an edge case here, I think.

[RüdiCoerdt (ruediger-coerdt)]

Wow, I thought this had gone down the drain long time ago, thanks for coming back to it. I don't recall exactly what was the case by
then, but I usually use a symbolic link so all the OSs installed on my machine use the same directory on a separate file system. I
solved the case by myself (and I guess/hope I mentioned it in the bug, not sure...) by renaming the directory/link; the installation
went through then.

Still my biggest concern was and is the state of the installation after the crash - usable or not. This was not clear when the error
occurred, and the error messages did not help. Proposal would be to make that snippet of the inst process a bit more stable.

Thanks again
Rüdiger

On 02/16/2012 12:01 PM, Colin Watson wrote:
> Normally adduser would handle this fine. Is it possible that
> /home/coerdtr is a symbolic link, e.g. to an encrypted filesystem
> somewhere? That would be an edge case here, I think.
>
> ** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => High
>
> ** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Triaged
>
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - Lubuntu installer crashed near the end of the installation
> + Couldn't create home directory: File exists
>

[dino99 (9d9)]

This version has expired for some time