precise failed to install: unable to initialize policy plugin

[Boyd]

I booted from the 12.04 beta image. Trying Ubuntu, everything works great but during the install I got a dialog box that only said "Installer Crashed".

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ubiquity 2.9.24
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-17.27-generic 3.2.6
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.94-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.306
Date: Mon Mar 5 21:02:09 2012
InstallCmdLine: noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- maybe-ubiquity
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120301)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA.UTF-8
 TERM=unknown
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Exception during installation:
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: Traceback (most recent call last):
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1690, in <module>
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: install.run()
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 55, in wrapper
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: func(self)
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 166, in run
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: self.configure_face()
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 271, in configure_face
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: uid = int(uid)
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py: ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu plugininstall.py:

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thanks for your report

Error from syslog
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo: unable to open /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo: unable to open /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo:
Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: unable to initialize policy plugin

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> Mar 6 05:00:35 ubuntu ubiquity: sudo: unable to open /etc/sudoers: Permission denied

That's a very strange error. sudo should be an suid-root executable, which means it should have no problem opening /etc/sudoers.

Is this happening when installing from a live CD or from a USB stick? What's the output of the command 'ls -l /usr/bin/sudo' on this system? (Have you already rebooted since hitting this error, and if so, did the problem persist?)

I suspect a filesystem corruption problem or kernel fs driver bug here. The above answers may help us pin it down.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I tried to reproduce this with a current daily and failed.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

About duplicate bug 980451 I notice the explanation says, "installing to a external drive, ubiquity crashed. External drive was formatted - "do somethng else" was chosen , no swap, / was selected on a ntfs partition."

That raises two red flags for me; using NTFS??? and no swap???

A manual install should proceed w/o swap but where does NTFS play into this?

I do have a blank 160GB external USB drive that I could test with if I knew exactly how to reproduce, but I don't think we can install Ubuntu to NTFS, can we?

[karl anliot (kanliot)]

sorry for the confusion. it was NTFS before I formatted it

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

karl, if the install had *actually* happened to an ntfs partition, instead of to an ext4 partition, that would exactly explain the symptom we're seeing here (since ntfs doesn't support suid executables). If you still have this install available, can you mount it and check what the filesystem type is? Can you also show the output of 'ls -l /usr/bin/sudo' on the target partition, as requested above on the bug?

It's certainly possible there's a bug here that's preventing the partition from being wiped even though you marked it for wiping; or the issue could be something else entirely.

[stan (wj883240)]

thanks for the response. I have since installed Ubuntu without hitch. I may have selected wrong partition to install to. I am dual booting Ubuntu and Windows7..and I do have a swap space assigned. Once again , I appreciate the response.

> Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:12:33 +0000
> From: <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 947738] Re: precise failed to install: unable to initialize policy plugin
>
> About duplicate bug 980451 I notice the explanation says, "installing to
> a external drive, ubiquity crashed. External drive was formatted - "do
> somethng else" was chosen , no swap, / was selected on a ntfs
> partition."
>
> That raises two red flags for me; using NTFS??? and no swap???
>
> A manual install should proceed w/o swap but where does NTFS play into
> this?
>
> I do have a blank 160GB external USB drive that I could test with if I
> knew exactly how to reproduce, but I don't think we can install Ubuntu
> to NTFS, can we?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (948207).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/947738
>
> Title:
> precise failed to install: unable to initialize policy plugin
>
> Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> I booted from the 12.04 beta image. Trying Ubuntu, everything works
> great but during the install I got a dialog box that only said
> "Installer Crashed".
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
> Package: ubiquity 2.9.24
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-17.27-generic 3.2.6
> Uname: Linux 3.2.0-17-generic x86_64
> ApportVersion: 1.94-0ubuntu1
> Architecture: amd64
> CasperVersion: 1.306
> Date: Mon Mar 5 21:02:09 2012
> InstallCmdLine: noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- maybe-ubiquity
> LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120301)
> ProcEnviron:
> LANGUAGE=en_CA.UTF-8
> TERM=unknown
> PATH=(custom, no user)
> LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: ubiquity
> UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/947738/+subscriptions

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

There's supposed to be code in partman-basicfilesystems (check.d/mountpoint_fat - never mind the file name) that prevents NTFS being used for system partitions where POSIX semantics are required, too. Although I suppose that if partman were fundamentally confused about the identity of the partition for some reason, or in some cases of pathological manual partitioning, we might have missed something there.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I did not find any recent incidents of this error, "sudo: unable to open /etc/sudoers:", in bug reports about ubiquity for any release than Ubuntu 12.04. Subsequently, I am unassigning the canonical-founations team from this bug report.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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