Malformed file while booting

[dino99]

When booting (cold boot), after a kernel is selected into grub2, it then try to start the boot process: but i get at least 50 % of the time, either "malformed file" message or "early console decompression error"
This happen with all the kernels used: from 3.11 to 3.15

That issue can happen with the first 2 cold boot, sometime only the first one. Reboot never works, need to do a cold boot.

Booting usually with 'upstart' or with 'systemd' does not matter about that issue.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: xz-utils 5.1.1alpha+20120614-2ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.15.0-1.2-generic 3.15.0-rc5
Uname: Linux 3.15.0-1-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.14.2-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Fri May 16 07:00:53 2014
Dependencies:
 gcc-4.9-base 4.9.0-3ubuntu1
 libc6 2.19-0ubuntu6
 libgcc1 1:4.9.0-3ubuntu1
 liblzma5 5.1.1alpha+20120614-2ubuntu2
 multiarch-support 2.19-0ubuntu6
SourcePackage: xz-utils
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[dino99 (9d9)]

Maybe some patches from upstream could help, like:

 5.1.2alpha (2012-07-04)
 * liblzma:
         - Fixed a deadlock and an invalid free() in the threaded encoder.
        - Fixed liblzma.pc for static linking.
        - Fixed a few portability bugs.

 5.1.3alpha (2013-10-26)
      * liblzma:
          - Fixed a deadlock in the threaded encoder.
          - Made the uses of lzma_allocator const correct.
          - Added lzma_block_uncomp_encode() to create uncompressed .xz Blocks using LZMA2 uncompressed chunks.
          - Added support for native threads on Windows and the ability to detect the number of CPU cores.

      * xz:
           - Fixed a race condition in the signal handling. It was possible that e.g. the first SIGINT didn't make xz exit
             if reading or writing blocked and one had bad luck.
           - Threaded encoder now works together with --block-list=SIZES.

http://git.tukaani.org/?p=xz.git;a=blob;f=NEWS;hb=HEAD

[dino99 (9d9)]

The "malformed file" error comes from grub

Here is the source code snippet (from grub-core/commands/loadenv.c):

| /* This might be actually valid, but it is unbelievable that
| any filesystem makes such a silly allocation. */
| return grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_FS, "malformed file");

So some integrity check can't believe what it reads, prints a cryptic
error message and then lets the user press a key. As there is no hint
WHICH file may be malformed, this isn't helpful in any way IMHO.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1311247

[dino99 (9d9)]

Was due to a bad ram voltage set by the bios