package grub-efi-amd64 installation fails with "Auto-detection of a filesystem of /dev/... failed"

[Peter Hawkins]

The grub package appears to have difficulty updating my already working grub installation. My machine uses UEFI to boot; the root filesystem (/dev/sda2) is in BTRFS format.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: grub-efi-amd64 1.99-12ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-11.18-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-11-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: openafs nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Sep 15 11:28:42 2011
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
SourcePackage: grub2
Title: package grub-efi-amd64 1.99-12ubuntu3 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sam_ (and-sam)]

Similar Bug #820723

[Peter Hawkins (hawkinsp)]

GNU Parted 2.3
I don't think this is the same issue as #820723; I've successfully performed grub upgrades several times, but a recent grub package started producing this behavior. My system still boots at the moment; the package simply will not upgrade.

Here's my partition scheme (which I created manually, not using the installer directly)
/dev/sda1 is my UEFI EPS partition. I created the partitions manually during installation to work around the issues in #769669 (partman creates an illegal FAT16 EPS partition).
/dev/sda2 is my btrfs root partition.

$ sudo parted /dev/sda
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Model: ATA M4-CT128M4SSD2 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
 1 17.4kB 200MB 200MB fat32 boot
 2 200MB 64.2GB 64.0GB btrfs
 3 64.2GB 72.4GB 8192MB linux-swap(v1)
 4 72.4GB 72.5GB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres
 5 72.5GB 128GB 55.5GB ntfs Basic data partition

[Peter Hawkins (hawkinsp)]

This bug is non-deterministic. After running "dpkg --configure -a" many times in succession, it finally succeeded for no apparent reason. Perhaps there is a bad interaction between grub and btrfs?

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Setting up grub-efi-amd64 (1.99-12ubuntu4) ...
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0005,0003,0001,0006
Boot0001* Hard Drive
Boot0003* CD/DVD Drive
Boot0005* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0006* Removable Drive
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0005,0003,0001,0006
Boot0001* Hard Drive
Boot0003* CD/DVD Drive
Boot0005* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0006* Removable Drive
Boot0000* ubuntu
Installation finished. No error reported.
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-11-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-11-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-10-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-10-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-11-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-11-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /@/boot/memtest86+.bin
done
Setting up grub-efi (1.99-12ubuntu4) ...

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]