Cannot boot usb live media: hardcoded paths to udevadm (2013.05.24 daily live)

[Christopher Patrick]

Ubuntu Desktop images doesn't boot from USB and the user is dropped to a busybox prompt with the message : "Unable to find a medium containing a live file system"

On tty7 the following error is displayed "/init: line 7: /sbin/udevadm: not found"

both i386 and amd64 affected
not reproducible in virtualbox
not reproducible in dvdrom

TEST CASE:
1. Download Saucy desktop iso build >= 2013.05.24
2. Burn it to a USB stick:
    $ sudo dd if=saucy-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M
(replace X by the letter corresponding to your stick - be careful to not write to your hard drive)
3. Boot from the stick

ACTUAL RESULT:
After a while, boot failed and the message "(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system" is displayed.

from casper/initrd.lz:
njin@njin:~/Ubuntu$ ls -l sbin
total 1920
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 31536 mag 25 13:29 blkid
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 1416 mag 25 13:29 brltty-setup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 225152 mag 25 13:29 btrfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 46800 mag 25 13:29 cryptsetup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 21168 mag 25 13:29 dmraid
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 6822 mag 25 13:29 dmraid-activate
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 67536 mag 25 13:29 dmsetup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 23072 mag 25 13:29 dumpe2fs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 175232 mag 25 13:29 fsck.btrfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 35384 mag 25 13:29 hwclock
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 43888 mag 25 13:29 kpartx
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 43584 mag 25 13:29 losetup
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 914368 mag 25 13:29 lvm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 njin njin 9 mag 25 13:29 modprobe -> /bin/kmod
-rwsr-xr-x 1 njin njin 39704 mag 25 13:29 mount.cifs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 10240 mag 25 13:29 mount.fuse
lrwxrwxrwx 1 njin njin 12 mag 25 13:29 mount.ntfs -> /bin/ntfs-3g
lrwxrwxrwx 1 njin njin 12 mag 25 13:29 mount.ntfs-3g -> /bin/ntfs-3g
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 81632 mag 25 13:29 plymouthd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 njin njin 9 mag 25 13:29 rmmod -> /bin/kmod
lrwxrwxrwx 1 njin njin 3 mag 25 13:29 vgchange -> lvm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 njin njin 10560 mag 25 13:29 wait-for-root

original description:

I made the USB stick with USB startup creator in precise. Tested sha256sum and it checked out. When i rebooted into the USB stick i get following error message
Busybox v1.20.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.20.0-8ubuntu1) built in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
(Initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a lice file system.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1184066

[Christopher Patrick (cpatrick08)]

When do you think it will be fixed?

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

dunno, sorry
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[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Critical: As requested by njin (seems reasonable if it's dead in the water)
added media date back to title.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Hallo Dave,
I've removed the date because it is reproducible in today's builds too.
Thanks
Fabio
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[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

hmm, that last update about it not being reproducable in virtualbox is odd; if it was missing something from the image then why would it make any difference if booted in virtualbox?

I'm also confused by some of the earlier description; there seem to be two things described:
   * an init missing udevadm
   * a 'unable to find medium...' message

is it only the udevadm one happening now or both?
Are you still using the same thumbdrive image in virtualbox?

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

OK, lets go back to how you got the thumb drive image.
The original message said that you built the image using a USB startup creator on precise.

Is that still true?

You shouldn't need to do that, you should be able to just dd the image onto a thumbdrive.

Dave

[Christopher Patrick (cpatrick08)]

Yes I used USB startup creator at first dried not work so I dd the image and it did not work for me either.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Hallo Dave
Let me clarify:
I've booted normally the image from the usb key and it run splash screen, plymouth, then jump
into busy box with the message mentioned by cpatrik08.
I run again excluding plymouth and i've obtained a lot of:
/init: line 7: /sbin/udevadm: not found
I've extracted initrd.lz and effectively the file (udevadm) is not present in /sbin.
I've opened the initrd.lz of raring to compare and in Raring it exist (/sbin/udevadm) and I've also noted the lack of udevd.
The bug is not reproducible in Vbox because it start from cdrom - dvdrom

Fabio
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[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

I confirm what Fabio said. It fails when booting from a USB stick not in a VM, when the boot screen is disabled "/init: line 7: /sbin/udevadm: not found" is displayed on tty7 and after a while on tty1 the user is dropped tu busybox and the message "Unable to find a medium containing a live file system." is displayed

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Martin, I'm going to remove the various hardcoded paths which are part of what caused this; but could you also change /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/udev to copy the /sbin/udevadm symlink as well as its new /bin/udevadm target, for maximum compatibility with initramfs scripts we may have missed?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Fabio: udevd is in /lib/systemd/systemd-udevd now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package casper - 1.333

---------------
casper (1.333) saucy; urgency=low

  * Remove hardcoded paths to udevadm (LP: #1184066).
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Tue, 28 May 2013 11:19:12 +0100

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

> could you also change /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/udev to copy the /sbin/udevadm symlink as well as its new /bin/udevadm target

Oh, of course. Sorry that I missed that.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package cryptsetup - 2:1.4.3-4ubuntu3

---------------
cryptsetup (2:1.4.3-4ubuntu3) saucy; urgency=low

  * Remove hardcoded paths to udevadm (LP: #1184066).
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Tue, 28 May 2013 11:27:27 +0100

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package systemd - 202-0ubuntu8

---------------
systemd (202-0ubuntu8) saucy; urgency=low

  * debian/udev.{preinst,postinst,postrm}: Disable udevadm trigger during
    upgrades, to cause installation failures of packages which call udevadm
    trigger without depending on udev. (LP: #1182948)
  * debian/extra/initramfs.hook: Copy /sbin/udevadm compatibility symlink into
    initramfs. (LP: #1184066)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Tue, 28 May 2013 13:13:42 +0200

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

@ cpatrick08
tomorrow will be good.
Thanks to help to improve Ubuntu.
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[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

ubuntu 20130528.1 works

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