Installer crashed during partition analasis

[Eric Hedekar]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

As soon as I got to the partition stage it analyzed my disks worked for a while then returned a message along the lines of (sorry I didn't write it down) "Partitioning the free space chosen has failed, too many primary partitions". I clicked ok and a little bit later the crash report came up that had this info:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 185, in ?
     main()
   File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 180, in main
     install(args[0])
   File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 56, in install
     ret = wizard.run()
   File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 310, in run
     self.process_step()
   File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 858, in process_step
     self.process_autopartitioning()
   File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 913, in process_autopartitioning
     choice = self.get_autopartitioning()
   File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 1611, in get_autopartition_choice
     raise AssertionError, "no active autopartitioning choice"
AssertionError: no active autopartitioning choice

[Ulrich Lukas (ulrich-lukas)]

Hi,

similar problem with the KDE-ui version.

Yesterday, I downloaded the Kubuntu Desktop AMD-64 Live-CD image as of version 2007-01-11 from http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/20070111/.

I tried to install it on a newly purchased PC with an empty and unpartitioned 400GB-SATA harddisk. After starting the installer from the KDE desktop, I chose manual partitioning and I defined some partitions (/boot, swap, /, /home, /encrypted; first three primary partitions, the two last partitions logical.).

When I klicked "next" after that, I decided to do the partitioning again using slightly different individual partition sizes. I clicked on the "back"-button, and then the installer crashed and I got some error messages ("traceback") after that step. Right now, I can't attach the according error output, because after this first installer crash, the behavior has changed:

When I start the installer again, it crashes right after choosing the regional and user settings (German, Germany w/ deadkeys, timezone Berlin, etc.). This is even the case after a cold reboot of the computer. IMHO, the installer has already changed the boot sector/partition table of the once completely empty harddisk. (I'm attaching the first four 512-byte-chunks of my disk drive, obtained using "sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/bootsector bs=512 count=4")

When the installer crashes now, it outputs the following error log:

[quote]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 185, in ?
    main()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 180, in main
    install(args[0])
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 56, in install
    ret = wizard.run()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde-ui.py", line 328, in run
    self.process_step()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde-ui.py", line 804, in process_step
    self.process_autopartitioning()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde-ui.py", line 858, in process_autopartitioning
    choice = self.get_autopartition_choice()[0]
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde-ui.py", line 1573, in get_autopartition_choice
    choice = unicode(self.autopartition_buttongroup_texts[id])
 KeyError: -1
[end quote]

HTH, following: /var/log/partman, /var/log/syslog, first two kilobytes of physical harddisk space

[Ulrich Lukas (ulrich-lukas)]

When I overwrite the first sectors of my SATA harddrive with zeros using the following command, the installer doesn't crash at that stage any more:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=4

[Ulrich Lukas (ulrich-lukas)]

After this, I could reproduce the first error I had:

1.: The partitioning tool qtparted is run bun by the installer.
2.: I create a new partition table on the completely empty disk via right click and create a partition (e.g. 4GB root partition)
3.: I click on the "back"-button in the installer window --> crash; this message appears: We're sorry, the installer crashed [...],

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde-ui.py", line 1213, in on_back_clicked
    self.qtparted_vbox.remove(self.embed)
AttributeError: remove

I'm attaching /var/log/syslog and /var/log/partman again...

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Thanks for your report. This is also bug 76976. In addition, I've fixed the bug when going back from the KDE frontend's advanced partitioner reported by Ulrich two comments above.