installer cannot reformat btrfs partition

[Bryan Larsen]

I'm trying to install Ubuntu 13.10, asking it to reformat an existing btrfs partition to use for installation.

The installer reports the following error:

partman: /dev/sdb1 appears to contain an existing filesystem (btrfs).
partman: Error: use the -f option to force overwrite.

Of course, reformatting a btrfs partition is pretty silly; most times it's best to create and use a new subvolume. Either way it shouldn't fail...

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1265432/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Paul Gauret (pgauret)]

Faced the same bug in a different context.

I was trying to create a kvm vm on my system using btrfs on top of a lvm volume and was getting the same error message. This appears to be caused by the underlying lvm volume having previously contained an ext4 filesystem not being zeroed out.

Fix for me was simply to zero out the volume and re-launch the installer.

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