Ubiquity Installer Crash (Consistently Repeatable)

[scott]

Ubiquity installer fails with the following steps, booting off a 22.04 LTS USB.

Steps to reproduce:
- Select: *Try or Install Ubuntu [wait for bootup]
- Select: Try Ubuntu (with English) [wait for boot]
- Run "Install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS" icon in the top left corner of the screen [Shows Install / Welcome screen]
- Select English, click on Continue
- Select English (US) / English (US) for keyboard layout, click on Continue
- Select Normal Installation, Install thrid-party software, Configute secure boot, entered password, click on Continue
- Select Erase disk and install Ubuntu, Advanced features..., Erase disk and use ZFS, Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation, click OK, click Install Now
- Enter a security key, click Install Now
- View "Write the changes to disks?" (single drive computer, partitions: vfat, swap, bpool, rpool), click Continue
- View "Where are you?", select Los Angeles, click Continue
- Installer crashed.

Looking at /var/log/syslog, I see the following consistently with every try:

Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity[6225]: switched to page usersetup
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: Traceback (most recent call last):
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 769, in <module>
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: install = Install()
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 69, in __init__
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: assert os.path.ismount(self.target), \
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: AssertionError: Failed to mount the target: /target

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: ubiquity 22.04.15
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-25.25-generic 5.15.30
Uname: Linux 5.15.0-25-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CasperVersion: 1.470
Date: Wed Jun 1 21:17:24 2022
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed maybe-ubiquity quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20220419)
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Peter (2vphs)]

I'm running into this issue on a brand new machine with 2 nvme drivers the first has windows and I wanted to install ubuntu zfs root on the second nvme drive.

[scott (sahendrickson)]

The workaround I found was to go directly to the installer, not launch it from the desktop.

[Peter (2vphs)]

Hey scott, thanks for the suggestion. Straight from the installer is failing for me too. Same error. Can you tell me do you have more than one NVME drive in your computer? I think it may be related perhaps....

[scott (sahendrickson)]

I only had the one. Maybe try:

- Remove the other nvme, install, put the nvme back, update-grub/initramfs(?) to detect windows.

- apt-update/upgrade from the desktop beforehand. Creating the install usb from Rufus allows you to create a bigger fs that can store all of that. You just have to make sure you increase the size.

Not sure what to try after that. The setup has always seemed very fragile to me. But, I'm glad they got support for zfs. We can troubleshoot some more, send me a message with 'contact this user' on 'scott'. If we get it working then we can post the solution here.

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Can you try again with the 22.04.1 installer image? https://releases.ubuntu.com/22.04.1/ubuntu-22.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

[Peter (2vphs)]

I tried with a freshly downloaded image of ubuntu-22.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso from last Saturday and it was still failing with this same error for me at that time. I don't think the image has changed since then has it? I used the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator to create the bootable USB disk from the iso.

[Nick Rosbrook (enr0n)]

I was able to re-produce this in a QEMU/KVM setup using https://releases.ubuntu.com/22.04.1/ubuntu-22.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso. My installation also failed at the 'Initializing Key Store' stage, however I failed to copy my logs before deleting the VM. From the attached UbiquitySyslog.txt, I think this is the relevant part:

Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: I: Initializing Key Store
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: Device /dev/zvol/rpool/keystore does not exist or access denied.
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity[6225]: log-output -t ubiquity /usr/share/ubiquity/zsys-setup init
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity[6225]: Starting the installation
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu systemd-udevd[11969]: zd0: Process '/usr/bin/unshare -m /usr/bin/snap auto-import --mount=/dev/zd0' failed with exit code 1.
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity[6225]: debconffilter_done: ubi-timezone (current: ubi-timezone)
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity[6225]: Step_before = stepLocation
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity[6225]: switched to page usersetup
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: Traceback (most recent call last):
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 769, in <module>
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: install = Install()
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 69, in __init__
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: assert os.path.ismount(self.target), \
Jun 2 04:16:53 ubuntu ubiquity: AssertionError: Failed to mount the target: /target

FWIW, I think my error was different, but still at the 'Initializing Key Store' stage.

[Nick Rosbrook (enr0n)]

We should also check if this is present in Kinetic.

[Peter (2vphs)]

Just to add one other data point. I run into this issue without even enabling ZFS encryption. So I don't think that is even necessary.

[Peter (2vphs)]

I just tested with the new "ubuntu-22.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso" image copied to a usb drive and the issue appears fixed at least in my case. I no longer get this error. Now I just need to figure out how to install zsys as it seems like ubuntu is dropping support for it :( I hope this doesn't signal a coming end of official zfs on ubuntu....