usb-creator fails to run syslinux due to architecture mismatch

[Erick Brunzell]

I had previously just considered this same_as bug #1338528, but it's now marked as a duplicate of bug #1330165 which is Fix Released, so I'm reporting this as a new bug since I'm trying to use Vivid to create a Vivid live USB. The Vivid version of usb-creator constantly fails to successfully create a Vivid live USB at the point of installing the bootloader.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: usb-creator-gtk 0.2.67
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-15.15-generic 3.19.3
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-15-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: GNOME-Flashback:Unity
Date: Tue Apr 21 08:04:53 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-04-01 (20 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Beta i386 (20150331)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: usb-creator
UDisksDump: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'udisks'
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/1446646

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

From the UsbCreatorLog.txt:

usb-creator 2015-04-21 07:43:35,964 (DEBUG) install.py:232: install_bootloader
usb-creator 2015-04-21 07:43:47,676 (CRITICAL) install.py:99: Failed to install the bootloader.
usb-creator 2015-04-21 07:43:47,678 (ERROR) frontend.py:737: Installation failed.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/usbcreator/install.py", line 257, in install_bootloader
    timeout=MAX_DBUS_TIMEOUT)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 70, in __call__
    return self._proxy_method(*args, **keywords)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 145, in __call__
    **keywords)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 651, in call_blocking
    message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Python.OSError: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/service.py", line 707, in _message_cb
    retval = candidate_method(self, *args, **keywords)
  File "/usr/share/usb-creator/usb-creator-helper", line 226, in InstallBootloader
    popen([syslinux_exe, '-f', device])
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/usbcreator/misc.py", line 169, in popen
    startupinfo=startupinfo)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/subprocess.py", line 859, in __init__
    restore_signals, start_new_session)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/subprocess.py", line 1457, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg)
OSError: [Errno 8] Exec format error

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I was unable to recreate this using usb-creator-gtk version 0.2.67. It may be worth noting that udisks --dump works for me and it failed when apport was generating this crash report.

UDisksDump: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'udisks'

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Actually, it seems that the apport hook calls udisks without checking to see if it is available.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I've fixed the apport hook for usb-creator-gtk in trunk.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[sudodus (nio-wiklund)]

It is possible that this bug is causing usb-creator-gtk to fail today, when a fix for bug #1325801 is released to the trusty-proposed repository and fails to work.

[Vivien GUEANT (vivienfr)]

The Vivid version of usb-creator constantly fails to successfully create a Vivid live USB at the point of installing the bootloader.
The USB Key (2 GB) is formatted in FAT32

DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04 AMD64
Package: usb-creator-gtk 0.2.67ubuntu0.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-16-generic
Architecture: AMD64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME-Flashback:Unity

[Elmer Fudd (efuudd)]

Same error for me.
Note that this only happens with the 15.04 64 bit image (which I need), but works fine with the 32bit image.
Format 32bit 16g thumb drive as FAT 32.
Fails at install of bootloader.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Right, this explodes because the architecture you're running on doesn't allow starting executables of the architecture you're trying to burn on the USB disk.

Thanks for filing this bug, this is a genuine issue that we had not anticipated in the other bug you linked -- marking Triaged/High.

For now, you may wish to use dd to create these images; for example:
$ dd if=ubuntu-15.04-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdz bs=512

Will write the image to the USB device directly -- remember to make sure you pick the right device instead of /dev/sdz which should be your USB disk; since dd will happily write the contents of the image where you tell it to without confirmation. If you pick the wrong disk, you can say bye-bye to your data now.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The Precise Pangolin has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release