could not write byte broken pipe

Bug #521298 reported by dei
448
This bug affects 96 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
plymouth (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
Nominated for Lucid by Lukas Koranda
Nominated for Maverick by dino99

Bug Description

Binary package hint: plymouth

When I boot up the latest lucid livecd i get the message "Could not write byte, broken pipe" in the middle of the screen while the three colored bars are filling up at the bottom of the screen.

Just a cosmetic bug, ubuntu started afterwards.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Feb 13 08:09:00 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100210)
Package: plymouth 0.8.0~-9
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-12.17-generic
SourcePackage: plymouth
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-12-generic x86_64

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dei (cephos) wrote :
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Salvatore Palma (palma-salvatore) wrote :

It happens also here with alpha 3 lucid-desktop-i386 image (burned on cd)

tags: added: iso-testing
Changed in plymouth (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Arceliar (littlebuzz71) wrote :

Happens here as well with alpha 3, on amd64.

On this end, in addition to the message, a few other things happen. The system occasionally seems to hang at the mostly blank screen until switching to a VT and then back to X cause it to display the GDM login prompt. Which crashes after about 3 keystrokes when entering information. It reloads is fine at that point.

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Joe Anthony Wyers (joe-wyers) wrote :

Experiencing this, making Lucid Lynx unusable... Performed clean install, boots up fine the first time, not cleanly, but working... then, will never boot up again. Reports "could not write bytes: broken pipes" then flashes the boot screen and goes black screen with a cursor and a working mouse pointer, and any key press is shown in some encrypted format. No HDD activity, nothing.

Running Lucid Lynx alpha 3, installed all updates on first boot, 64-bit.

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Kenneth Venken (kenneth-venken) wrote :

Could be a duplicate of bug #519641

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Zaid.Javed (zaid-javed) wrote :

Hey Joe, I am having the same issue where the screen goes black with a cursor and mouse pointer. But if you press enter key it goes to the login screen and then I can login from there.

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Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott) wrote :

I think these are either from fsck or from mountall; either way, not plymouth

affects: plymouth (Ubuntu) → mountall (Ubuntu)
Changed in mountall (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
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Global Domination (xfx-distorted) wrote :

same here with lucid lynx netbook still it boots without problems

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Liviu Beraru (beraru-liviu) wrote :

Same here on Kubuntu Lucid Beta 1 on a Lenovo S12 machine and dual boot with XP. Clean install with all updates. After the broken pipes message, the screen goes black and then I get the login screen. After that the system seems to function alright.

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jim weaver (lonewitch) wrote :

I have same problem and at times I have to reboot to get it to start, I have kde desktop and gnome and switch between them

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jhfhlkjlj (fdsuufijjejejejej-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

I just barely had this happen to me. I was working on the desktop (compiling, actually), and then the whole screen died and this message kept flashing.

Afterwards, the whole desktop flipped out and colors flashed everywhere. It was pretty neat, actually.

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michael barany (michael-barany) wrote :

same issue on my eee-pc 1000 running the latest update of lucid-netbook beta; the normal boot screen doesn't come up until just a moment before login, and after the login screen everything appears normal (though occasionally the bugtracker (?) applet identifies a problem with plymouthd). I also get the "broken pipe" message when shutting down the computer, before it goes into the graphical shutdown screen. Can't find anything in log files about this, though.

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Dr Soul (lagashkinruslan-gmail) wrote :

Confirm bug.
i386 architecture, last Lucid core version 2.6.32-19-generic.
The phrase repeats six times while the last boot screen.

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Priyaranjan Mazumdar (priyaranjanm) wrote :

I faced this issues while trying to play .MOV files from iPhone on Movie Player.
This also occurs everytime I boot the system, as well.

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nal (nalberto) wrote :

same here on an acer one just after upgrading to 10.04 UNR
It takes a while to boot and shows this message too

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Chris Jepsen (jeppodude) wrote :

This message shows under the 'Ubuntu 10.04' purple splash screen. The boot is then much slower than expected.

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cmyrland (carl-rahien) wrote :

Same as Chris Jepsen. I took the time from the kernel was loaded, and it took well over 40 seconds before I saw the desktop wallpaper, and some more until everything popped into place. It boots much slower than 9.10 on the same computer. Both with ext4.

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hasi (whynot-nurfuerspam) wrote :

Problem still there in kubuntu lucid beta4: during boot, screen stays most of the time black and in text mode. The new graphical blue theme only shows up for a split second before kdm starts. I also get the "broken pipe" messages.

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David Coconut (coconut) wrote :

Affects Ubuntu 10.04 beta 2, Linux kernel version 2.6.32-19-generic, x86-64. Acer Aspire 5720.

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Liviu Beraru (beraru-liviu) wrote :

Same here on Toshiba Satellite L-40 and Lenovo S12, both with Kubuntu Lucid Beta 2 installed and all updates.

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Lukas Koranda (lkoranda) wrote :

Lucid Beta 2 - 2.6.32-19-generic x86_64 with latest updates on Sony Vaio

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Andrej Mernik (r33d3m33r-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Same problem here. I use Kubuntu 10.04 beta 2 64-bit (kernel 2.6.32-19-generic) on a HP Compaq 6715b. At boot, only a blinking underscore sign is shown, no boot screen. Then I get ~6 broken pipe messages, right before the login screen. The system boots in 20 seconds, so it does not affect the performance.

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Prunus dulcis (prunus-dulcis) wrote :

The same problem here on a thinkpad x41 tablet with all patches till this morning. 'Cannot write bytes. Broken pipes' comes up several times and no boot up screen. Then it just goes straight to the desktop. Very fast as well, just looks ugly with the error-messages.

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ichudov (igor-chudov) wrote :

I have the same problem on an old laptop. The system is now nearly completely bricked. I can only use text logon from Ctrl-Alt-F1. (and that's how I ran the below commands)

I am attaching lspci, dmidecode, lspci -vvnn, free, cpuinfo.

i

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Turd Ferguson (turdferguson) wrote :

Compaq Presario SR1503WM, same problem... Random crash with "Cannot write bytes: Broken Pipe". Does not recover or show any signs of activity up to 10 minutes later. Only recourse is to hold the power button for a forced shutdown.

Restart comes back up fine, until the next crash.

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Evan Reed (evanr-ot) wrote :

Same error on start-up of beta 2 lucid lynx on an IBM T30. After the messages the login screen comes up and all appears fine.

Revision history for this message
Dave M G (martin-autotelic) wrote :

I recently ran the update manager and the kernel has been upgraded. The system seemed more stable, and stayed up for a few days. However, then it crashed with the "broken pipe" message. This time, however, the message also said something about "kerneloops".

The system did not restart by itself, so I had to hard reboot.

When the system came back, I got an Apport crash warning, also referencing something called "kerneloops". I'm guessing the crash and the Apport message are related.

I went through a series of prompts to gather information. However, at the end, it said:

This problem report is damaged and cannot be processed.
TypeError(Error('Incorrect padding',),)

So I don't know if the problem was reported correctly. The Apport information seems to be attached to Bug #562664

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jim weaver (lonewitch) wrote :

also says something about a file path being null here at startup at times it wont boot have to reboot a few times,i am also using lucid

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Matthieu Poullet (mpoullet) wrote :

Hi,

I've the same problem with the latest Lucid image for the Beagleboard, available at:
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Lucid_10.04_.28beta-2.29

I've attached the boot logs.

Regards,
Matthieu.

Revision history for this message
Netwalker (tonyd-jacklinks) wrote :

I've had the exact same problem on an acer laptop and a compaq nx7400 laptop.

It "seems" to be cosmetic. Both machines boot properly and surprisingly fast, but like others have mentioned the errors displayed are ugly - terminal screen with "Cannot write bytes: Broken Pipe" listed three times and the Ubuntu logo with dots below are not displayed (after the first boot).

Revision history for this message
Paulus (donmatteo) wrote :

Thinkpad T60 here, same bug, cosmetic only (it partially ruins the beautiful lucid boot experience.) Seems related to the part where it is determend whether partions need to be "fsck"ed. Happens every time.

Also, on shutdown, the system drops to "text mode" (framebuffer) before shutting down, whichs seems a similar problem.

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JIMHERON (jimheron) wrote :

I have had the same message/problem the last few days. To get running again I have hold down the power button for 15/20 secs and then reboot. Latest was when trying to play a video from a memory stick, the broken pipes message appeared.

Revision history for this message
GreyGeek (greygeek) wrote :

I am running the 64bit Kubuntu Lucid Lynx on a Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E notebook. I get two broken pipe messages at the beginning of the boot process. The error msg is brief but mentions a path and/or file not existing. The boot process continues on to a black screen for 10 or 15 seconds, then the purple "Ubuntu" splash screen for a couple seconds, then another black screen for about 15 seconds, with spinning white balls which respond to mouse movements. Then the KDE4 login screen appears. Over all, the time from power-on to a working KDE4 DE is about 50 seconds. It used to take 35 seconds.

Revision history for this message
Gaël (gaelg) wrote :

For me it crashes when I'm using firefox (no crash since I use epiphany). Same as others : a black screen where it's written "could not write bytes, broken pipe" several times, and one or two seconds later, I'm at the login screen. I noticed that when I tried to redo the action I did when it crashed (read a embedded video, open a link,...), it usually crashed again (not always).
Not sure it really comes from firefox, but it may be due to the fact that firefox need a lot of RAM or something like that... But I did not notice any trouble when using an application like fspot, which use a lot of memory too.

If it can help...

affects: mountall (Ubuntu) → plymouth (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

I realize this bug is only cosmetic, but it really makes the boot process look unprofessional. Shouldn't the importance be set to something and (hopefully) milestoned for Lucid?

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Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

Fwiw, removing 'splash' from the kernel command line helps somewhat-- the boot is not pretty, and you see a flash of this text, but it isn't quite as noticeable.

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Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

Additionally, I've seen this on several older i386 boxes when using the plymouth text theme and have not seen it anywhere with the plymouth logo theme.

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Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

It seems that something changed in plymouth that disables the text theme completely, so I can't give more feedback on the issue. (discussed with slangasek on IRC)

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ichudov (igor-chudov) wrote : Re: [Bug 521298] Re: could not write byte broken pipe

For me, this is not merely a cosmetic issue. X crashes on one laptop
when I see this message and the laptop is unusable.

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Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

Shutdown with the text theme also shows a lot of text, with stair stepping.

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Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

Err... correction-- I see a lot of initscript output on shutdown-- there is a missing newline after the 4 pulsing dots that causes the first line of initscript output to be displayed on the same line as the dots.

Revision history for this message
Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

After hitting bug #566762, I removed the plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo and the Broken pipe/other output on boot is much less noticeable (after several reboots). I can't say or sure if this is due to the catching of the output being racy (and me winning lately), the newer plymouth 0.8.2-2 helps with it or because I removed the theme (due to that bug, I can't test this one with plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo installed).

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Chris Kemp (kempy1000) wrote :

I had this problem with the mythbuntu 10.04 alpha 3 livecd and never had it appear when booting. I just installed ubuntu lucid beta 2 command line system with the alternate cd and I get the message now on every bootup.

Revision history for this message
Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote :

There is a now a workaround in #566762, so I installed plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo, it has no affect (unsurprisingly).

To summarize, on my T42:
1. boot with 'plymouth:splash=ubuntu-text' as the non-last kernel arg
2. text theme is used
3. occasionally have a flash of text before gdm comes up
4. on shutdown, the text theme is used, but initscript output is usually displayed, starting on the same line as the 4 pulsing dots from the theme. On at least one occasion there was no initscript output

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hasi (whynot-nurfuerspam) wrote :

It's 3 days before the LTS release and I still have an ugly boot process...
So how does this workaround work? Anybody having success in fixing the ugly boot screen?

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dino99 (9d9) wrote :

on maverick i386 updated

see this error on screen when shutdown the system. This is new on my end, one of the latest updated packages might be to blame: see it for the first time on Sept 24.

tags: added: i386 maverick
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dino99 (9d9) wrote :

on my end, this error is gone now on maverick i386

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Greniel (glados1489) wrote :

This affects lubuntu too, but it seems to be working fine... What's going on?

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Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

This bug has been entirely dormant for more than a year, with no one reporting recurrence of the issue since the last update in maverick. If you're still seeing it in current Lubuntu, I think you've got a new issue and should file a separate bug report.

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Enkouyami (furyhamster) wrote :

I got this while running Ubuntu 12.04 beta i386 , Linux kernel version 3.2.0-19-generic-pae i686 on Acer Aspire M1640.

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Michael Stephenson (mickstephenson) wrote :

Like furyhamster this bug affects me running 12.04 beta 64bit

dino99 (9d9)
tags: added: precise
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Pedro Bessa (pedbessa) wrote :

This happens to me in Xubuntu 12.04.

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Bullwinkle (bullwinkle54) wrote :

I got this while running Ubuntu 12.04 i386 , Linux kernel version 3.2.0-19-generic-pae HP pavilion m7790y.

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Spyros Kavvadias (thunk) wrote :

Issue persists on Precise :)

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Ahmet Kaya (inserthomedelend) wrote :

i'm having this problem too while logging out openbox stand alone session...

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BlueLight (bluelight-auroville) wrote :

same here, 12.04 32bit with all updates

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Benjamin Mbiyu (benmbiyu) wrote :

I'm having the same problem on 12.04 32bit. Very annoying cause my whole system freezes up and I have to restart X server. Hope I get a solution soon cause I really don't want to go back to Windows.

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benditoelqueviene (quasar1970) wrote :

Same here, very fast. Ubuntu 12.04 starts without problem, nothing more than "Could not write bytes...". Occured just after update everything through update-manager, including 3.2.0-35-generic-pae in Acer Aspire 5920. I use Grub Customizer 3.0.2 for change appearance.

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MightyPork (mighty-pork) wrote :

I can confirm this bug is still present in Kubuntu 12.04, I decided to upgrade my system to get new KDE and all these security fixes, but this bug was obviously included as a bonus. The update came from kubuntu-backports.

It does not show the splash animation, only the text-only logo with flashing dots.
At the end, something about broken pipe and writing bytes appears for a moment, then it either dies and shows the F1 login prompt, or - sometimes - it proceeds to KDM and lets me log in normally.

I tried to find "broken pipe" in system logs, with no success.

After logging into the console at F1, startx seems to work all right.

Revision history for this message
dino99 (9d9) wrote :

outdated report & no more maintained distro; please send a new one if that issue still exist (using ubuntu-bug)

Changed in plymouth (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Invalid
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