Ubiquity hangs if the ESP can not be mounted

[Erick Brunzell]

I'm not altogether certain what happened here because I'm almost totally new to the whole EFI boot process but I was testing Ubuntu GNOME Vivid 20150219 amd64 to see how we now handle upgrades via iso in a dual boot with Windows and the upgrade/installation froze saying, "Removing conflicting operating system files....".

I sent myself several pictures via PM because I couldn't "kill" ubiquity - top doesn't even show it running - so I'll follow up more later. I am attaching one screenshot of the frozen process.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: ubiquity 2.21.11
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.18.0-13.14-generic 3.18.5
Uname: Linux 3.18.0-13-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.16.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.351
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Fri Feb 20 02:27:54 2015
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-gnome.seed boot=casper quiet splash --
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu-GNOME 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Alpha amd64 (20150219)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[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/1423830

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I sorted through those screenshots and I'm going to post a few, hopefully to make things easier to understand.

This first pic is a compilation of Gparted before trying the upgrade and the actual Installation type screen.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I was almost immediately confronted with the warning displayed in this pic. I was not particularly worried though because I knew that an /EFI/boot partition did actually exist and assumed that I could sort that out once the upgrade/installation was complete.

As bit of history on the existing dual-boot would probably be quite helpful:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2264348

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

After the obligatory "changes will be written to disks" warning I didn't get far (2 minutes in) and was presented with the warning in this pic. I very well may have messed up here because I chose to continue rather than go back, but once again I regarded it as something only related to boot and assumed I could straighten that out after re-installation.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

About 20 minutes later I checked on the upgrade/installation and the screen appeared to be frozen. If you look at the clock towards the top of this screenshot you'll it shows 01:22 whereas the screenshot I included in the original debug info shows 01:58 so I'd think I'd waited plenty long enough.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I've done a considerable amount of repeat testing and this problem seems to be limited to the upgrade/replace option while keeping existing files. I've been able to reproduce it in Windows 8.1 dual-boots with Precise -> Trusty, Trusty -> Utopic, and Utopic -> Vivid upgrades.

It does not affect Erase Ubuntu, Install alongside, or Something else installs. They all complete successfully other than some occasional bootloader problems that are fairly easily remedied.

So I wonder why the other install options recognize the existing /EFI/boot partition properly but the Upgrade option does not?????

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I'm resetting the priority for this to Medium given that distribution upgrades via DVD are not that common.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The last bits of the log file show it clearing some of the file system after that its mostly kernel messages:

Feb 20 07:01:49 ubuntu-gnome clear_partitions: Removing var/lib/xfonts from / (/dev/sda5).
Feb 20 07:01:49 ubuntu-gnome clear_partitions: Removing var/lib/xkb from / (/dev/sda5).
Feb 20 07:01:49 ubuntu-gnome clear_partitions: Removing var/lib/xml-core from / (/dev/sda5).
Feb 20 07:01:51 ubuntu-gnome kernel: [ 1005.160536] EXT4-fs (sda5): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: errors=remount-ro
Feb 20 07:01:51 ubuntu-gnome ubiquity: mount: /dev/sda2 is already mounted or /target/boot/efi busy
Feb 20 07:01:51 ubuntu-gnome ubiquity: /dev/sda2 is already mounted on /target/boot/efi
Feb 20 07:02:19 ubuntu-gnome ubiquity[4029]: debconffilter_done: ubiquity.components.partman_commit (current: ubi-usersetup)
Feb 20 07:03:19 ubuntu-gnome ubiquity[4029]: debconffilter_done: ubi-usersetup (current: ubi-usersetup)
Feb 20 07:03:19 ubuntu-gnome ubiquity[4029]: Step_before = stepUserInfo

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Have you tested it with the generic Ubuntu (not Ubuntu GNOME) media?

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

@ Brian, I'll retest with Ubuntu media ASAP but that may be a week to ten days from now.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I set this to incomplete as a reminder to myself that further testing is needed.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I may not get back to testing in regards to this bug before Vivid releases but I've been following bug #1418706 and suspect that the two may be related - but not duplicates - so I wanted to make a note to myself for when I do get back to this. Specifically look at comments 33 and 34.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

This does effect vanilla Ubuntu Trusty (14.04.2), Utopic, and Vivid.

Also this time I set up a simple installation of 12.04.5 on bare metal, no dual boot, I just let the installer erase the whole 160GB GPT disc so I had only a 510MB /boot/efi partition + / & SWAP.

As I've played more and more with UEFI installations it seems clear that somehow the installer fails to recognize the existing /boot/efi partition and complains that no "EFI boot partition" exists.

After clicking on go back the installer lands me in the advanced partitioner and you can clearly see in the two combined screenshots that /boot/efi does exist.

[Igor Polyakov (iopq)]

I had the same error as #5 installing Ubuntu 18.04

I ended up finding a solution from an SO post from 2015 (!)

https://askubuntu.com/questions/502307/the-attempt-to-mount-a-file-system-with-type-vfat-in-ssi10-0-0-partition1sda

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1 worked for me to format the EFI partition and the installer worked when I rebooted and tried it again

[Igor Polyakov (iopq)]

I installed from a USB stick, by the way, not from DVD