xubuntu 18.10 daily image (x86) fails to boot - initramfs

[Chris Guiver]

x86 daily image (32bit) XUBUNTU 18.10

- booted & ran fine on dell latitude d610
- booted & ran fine on ibm thinkpad t43

fails on

- hp dc7700 small form factor desktop
- dell 755 desktop
- lenovo thinkpad x201

I don't get the "try xubuntu / install xubuntu" screen, instead it eventually drops to

----
"BusyBox v1.27.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.27.2-2ubuntu4) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands

(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system
----

Note: I typed the messages in so typos may exist

I suspect it's the same issue as
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1794922

where Walter (wxl) gave a possible link to

http://debian.2.n7.nabble.com/Bug-908924-dma-direct-map-sg-overflow-on-USB-access-after-upgrade-to-kernel-4-18-td4387757.html

I've been testing xubuntu 18.10 daily images for awhile (but not logging on qa-tracker - my bad, sorry!!!) without issue on t43 & d610, and only rarely booting on other boxes (like 755/dc7700/..)

It may have been ~15-20 days since last tested on dell 755; but it worked fine back then (& prior) but due to my QA-tracking omission, we can't be exact - sorry again!

[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/1795092/+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.]

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

same issue on lenovo thinkpad x201 (i5, 4gb, i915)

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. While running an Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline or third-party kernel) please enter the following command in a terminal window:

apport-collect 1795092

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Are you able to boot with older releases on these systems that are failing? If so, we can test out the cosmic kernels and try to narrow down the commit that introduced this regression.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

I no longer have a 4.17 image; and my requests for if anyone who knows where one is (on irc) got no answer.

Yes these systems booted the daily ISO three-four weeks ago when tested; but I'd not found & thus wasn't using the QA-tracker at that time, so I have no logs sorry (I'm new to QA-testing)

If you can find an 4.17 kernel ISO, I'd love to test it.

Note: I don't recall the kernels that it stopped working, the switch to 4.18 was about the same time it was last successfully tested on those boxes. I concentrated testing on lower spec machines for x86 ISO; those boxes are x86_64 capable, and thus only tested very occasionally (not enough obviously). I was pointed to that possible-cause by Walter (wxl) because it effects the Lubuntu image too (both x86)

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

changed to confirm as system won't boot; I can't run ubuntu-bug using that image.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

It is my suspicion that the change occurred at switch to 4.18; but only because of timeline, and Walter (WXL) discussion providing a link to a possible cause that was introduced shortly after what I recall as being my last successful test on those machines (755, dc7700 anyway)

I'm new to testing, and hadn't found the QA-tracker when I started testing 18.10, so my successful tests on those boxes aren't recorded which right now is a pain, for which I'm sorry.

I requested on IRC to see if anyone knows where I can download a 4.17 kernel x86 ISO (either xubuntu or lubuntu) when this bug was reported, but it was ~3 weeks ago (3-4?) when last tested successfully on dell 755 & hp dc7700. (I have no idea if or when it was last tested on x201 (I rarely think of it)

If older images are available, I'll happily test them (any 4.17 x86 image is what I wanted to start testing on to confirm wxl's theory)

---
changed to CONFIRMED as I can't run ubuntu-bug

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

If possible, maybe you could install an older release such as Bionic? There are older iso images here:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/

Once you have an older release install, you can install the 18.10 kernel on it and see if it hits this bug. The latest 18.10 kernel is available from:
https://launchpad.net/~canonical-kernel-team/+archive/ubuntu/unstable/+build/15346040

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

The x201's native OS is Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (x86_64), the native OS for dc7700 is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (x86_64), but whilst we haven't proven the debian issue is the problem, it relates to i686 only (not amd64). I can add the kernel to the x201 (if it had HWE enabled, it'd almost be there anyway), but I don't expect issues on amd64.

Did you mean i686/i386?

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

your second link opened to i386/686 kernels, so I'm guessing yes (to i686/i386)

I'm downloading lubuntu 18.04.1 x86 (sorry I forgot this related to a xubuntu issue; I'm testing both in x86) & will let it continue to save bandwidth (monthly quotas here)... I'll install (over fedora x86_64) on dell 755...

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

installed lubuntu 18.04.1 on dell 755 without updates, format of /, but used my old /home (from fedora). rebooted post install, pointed sources to my ISP's ubuntu mirror (bandwidth free updates) & dist-upgrade. I added xubuntu-desktop & some of the apps missing from my modified xfce desktop.

added canonical kernel ppa; changed [ppa] source to point to cosmic; update & install kernel. reboot & login (normally!)

guiverc@755-lubu:~$ screenfetch -n
 guiverc@755-lubu
 OS: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
 Kernel: x86_64 Linux 4.18.0-8-generic
 Uptime: 10m
 Packages: 1678
 Shell: bash 4.4.19
 Resolution: 1680x1050
 DE: XFCE
 WM: Xfwm4
 WM Theme: Agualemon
 GTK Theme: Mist [GTK2]
 Icon Theme: gnome
 Font: Sans 10
 CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E6850 @ 2x 2.71GHz
 GPU: ATI RV515
 RAM: 477MiB / 4824MiB

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

found my xubuntu 18.10 daily image iso (updated this morning 2018-10-04 is date found in zsync)
xubuntu plymouth screen, ctrl-alt-f2 & scrolling

[ 99.999999] ehci-pci 0000:00:1a.7:dma_direct_map_sg: overflow 0x000000016cbe60000+2048 of device mask ffffffff

and eventually

---
[ 9.570802] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 9.570846] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

"BusyBox v1.27.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.27.2-2ubuntu4) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands

(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system
[ 234.592022] usb 4-1:device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 240.353082] usb 4-1:device descriptor read/8m error -110
// three more usb 4-1 messages
... usb usb4-port1: unable to enumerate USB device

// the usb messages I ignore; they appeared when I started using a cheap powered
// hub which is always connected ; occurred on fedora (now gone) & opensuse
// on ctrl-alt-f2 or text screen there were more usb messages I ignore
// also note I'm keying this text in on nearby desktop; typos may exist.

[Walter Lapchynski (wxl)]

Thanks for all the testing, Chris. It leaves me a little baffled.

That said, to Joseph et al, two questions:

 1. This seems to be the same messages from 1794922 but slightly different symptoms. Should they be considered as the same?
 2. With the kernel apparently working in Bionic, that suggests some sort of regression in some component outside the kernel that is calling on the USB. What might be likely candidates?

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

SORRY

I just realized on october 5, I wrote the wrong (x86_64) ISO to the thumb-drive, and installed x86_64 when I downloaded the x86.. Subsequently that test was useless..

I won't re-do it correctly; too late now - sorry again.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

-- i re-did test from comment #13 (oct 5) hopefully correctly using lubuntu

installed lubuntu 18.04.1 on dell 755 without updates
i did NOT format /, using old /home from #13
reooted post install, pointed sources to my ISP's ubuntu mirror, dist-upgrade & reboot

added canonical kernel ppa; changed [ppa] source to point to cosmic; update & install kernel. reboot & login (normally!)

guiverc@755-lubu:~$ apt-cache policy linux-image-4.18.0-10-generic
linux-image-4.18.0-10-generic:
  Installed: 4.18.0-10.11
  Candidate: 4.18.0-10.11
  Version table:
 *** 4.18.0-10.11 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/canonical-kernel-team/unstable/ubuntu cosmic/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
guiverc@755-lubu:~$ screenfetch -n
 guiverc@755-lubu
 OS: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
 Kernel: i686 Linux 4.18.0-10-generic
 Uptime: 2m
 Packages: 1396
 Shell: bash 4.4.19
 Resolution: 1680x1050
 DE: LXDE
 WM: OpenBox
 WM Theme: Onyx
 GTK Theme: Lubuntu-default [GTK2]
 Icon Theme: Lubuntu
 Font: Ubuntu 11
 CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E6850 @ 2x 2.085GHz
 GPU: AMD/ATI RV516 [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series]
 RAM: 354MiB / 4923MiB