grub-installer breaks on disks with dmraid metadata but only one disk

[Turtle]

Binary package hint: grub-installer

Conversation from #ubuntu-installer IRC with cjwatson detailing the problem: http://pastebin.ca/1598162

The 2 logs I got from livecd after the installer crashed: http://pastebin.ca/1590707 and http://pastebin.ca/1590774

[Turtle (froggy-the-duck)]

<turtle4464> cjwatson, here http://pastebin.ca/1590707
<turtle4464> cjwatson, here is the second http://pastebin.ca/1590774
<cjwatson> any particular reason you posted snippets of the logs rather than just the whole syslog file?
<turtle4464> cjwatson, i only posted the part where the installer was trying to install grub, because thats where the installer crashed
<cjwatson> I don't debug incomplete syslogs
<turtle4464> does that log have anything useful?
<cjwatson> it says that the dmraid set is broken
<cjwatson> #
<cjwatson> Oct 3 15:05:44 ubuntu ubiquity: ERROR: isw device for volume "Volume0" broken on /dev/sda in RAID set "isw_bgiiahbjbc_Volume0"
<cjwatson> #
<cjwatson> Oct 3 15:05:44 ubuntu ubiquity: ERROR: isw: wrong # of devices in RAID set "isw_bgiiahbjbc_Volume0" [1/2] on /dev/sda
<cjwatson> it doesn't say why
<turtle4464> yea, i don't really know what that means
<cjwatson> it could be that the installer's failing to assemble it properly, or it could be genuinely broken. I can't tell, sorry
<turtle4464> oh
<turtle4464> could me having a second storage drive connected be affecting it?
<cjwatson> I'm afraid I don't know; dmraid is just saying it's degraded, which would normally mean that one of the drives in the set is broken or missing
<cjwatson> or misconfigured
<turtle4464> i am not running raid at all, i don't even know how, there is 1 160GB OS drive which i let the installer use completely for the OS, and 1 1TB drive with just avi files
* CarlFK (<email address hidden>) has joined #ubuntu-installer
<cjwatson> turtle4464: it looks like you have raid metadata on your disk though
<cjwatson> of the inferior BIOS RAID variety, but that's probably not your fault :)
<turtle4464> cjwatson, i've never run raid, at least not intentionally, ubuntu 9.04 installs fine, is there something else i could be doing?
<cjwatson> no, what's probably happening is that now we have (slightly) better support for dmraid than we used to
<cjwatson> but unfortunately your computer appears to be set up with the capability for dmraid, but it's only actually configured on one drive so the dmraid tools don't like it
<turtle4464> O.O
<turtle4464> this is generic hardware, intel dp35dp mobo, q6600
<cjwatson> I don't need model numbers, thanks :)
<cjwatson> it's a bug in grub-installer that it's trying to install to dmraid despite dmraid being broken

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

<turtle4464> cjwatson, here http://pastebin.ca/1590707
<turtle4464> cjwatson, here is the second http://pastebin.ca/1590774
<cjwatson> any particular reason you posted snippets of the logs rather than just the whole syslog file?
<turtle4464> cjwatson, i only posted the part where the installer was trying to install grub, because thats where the installer crashed
<cjwatson> I don't debug incomplete syslogs
<turtle4464> does that log have anything useful?
<cjwatson> it says that the dmraid set is broken
<cjwatson> #
<cjwatson> Oct 3 15:05:44 ubuntu ubiquity: ERROR: isw device for volume "Volume0" broken on /dev/sda in RAID set "isw_bgiiahbjbc_Volume0"
<cjwatson> #
<cjwatson> Oct 3 15:05:44 ubuntu ubiquity: ERROR: isw: wrong # of devices in RAID set "isw_bgiiahbjbc_Volume0" [1/2] on /dev/sda
<cjwatson> it doesn't say why
<turtle4464> yea, i don't really know what that means
<cjwatson> it could be that the installer's failing to assemble it properly, or it could be genuinely broken. I can't tell, sorry
<turtle4464> oh
<turtle4464> could me having a second storage drive connected be affecting it?
<cjwatson> I'm afraid I don't know; dmraid is just saying it's degraded, which would normally mean that one of the drives in the set is broken or missing
<cjwatson> or misconfigured
<turtle4464> i am not running raid at all, i don't even know how, there is 1 160GB OS drive which i let the installer use completely for the OS, and 1 1TB drive with just avi files
* CarlFK (<email address hidden>) has joined #ubuntu-installer
<cjwatson> turtle4464: it looks like you have raid metadata on your disk though
<cjwatson> of the inferior BIOS RAID variety, but that's probably not your fault :)
<turtle4464> cjwatson, i've never run raid, at least not intentionally, ubuntu 9.04 installs fine, is there something else i could be doing?
<cjwatson> no, what's probably happening is that now we have (slightly) better support for dmraid than we used to
<cjwatson> but unfortunately your computer appears to be set up with the capability for dmraid, but it's only actually configured on one drive so the dmraid tools don't like it
<turtle4464> O.O
<turtle4464> this is generic hardware, intel dp35dp mobo, q6600
<cjwatson> I don't need model numbers, thanks :)
<cjwatson> it's a bug in grub-installer that it's trying to install to dmraid despite dmraid being broken

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package grub-installer - 1.43ubuntu5

---------------
grub-installer (1.43ubuntu5) karmic; urgency=low

  * Fix mishandling of loop variable that caused the semi-manual
    dmraid/multipath/mdadm handling to fire even for disks that don't need
    it (LP: #444583).
  * Never use the semi-manual GRUB setup code for GRUB 2, since it won't
    work anyway.

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:13:02 +0100

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Brent, can you please explain why you reopened this bug by setting it from Fix Released to Fix Committed? I'm closing it again in the meantime.

[peter b (b1pete)]

Colin,

question pls, am I on the right bug re grub2 lucid beta1 install on sda with raid metadata still present ? pls see #331 and 333 on

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275&page=34

or a new bug ?

thanks.