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#1 2014-01-13 17:58:03

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

[SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

I just updated my server machine here which installed the kernel 3.12.7-2-ARCH - on rebooting the system (rEFInd) the system seems to be trying to look for an encrypted volume and then hangs - I don't have an encrypted volume!  Does anyone offer a suggestion on how to recover my system?  Is there a switch on the kernel line that I can use to get the system booted again?

I can't copy lines off the console as the system won't boot.

This is quite a worry - my entire network here relies on that server.

I am hoping that someone can help with a suggestion. I am connected via a temporary connection on an old laptop so I can at least get to the forum.

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by mcloaked (2014-01-13 22:25:31)


Mike C

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#2 2014-01-13 18:04:38

birdflesh
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From: Greece
Registered: 2010-08-04
Posts: 97

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

Today's updates made my system unbootable too.

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#3 2014-01-13 18:05:46

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

It looks like it was a mirror package synchronisation problem where it was vital to have libgcrypt updated if you update the kernel

Last edited by mcloaked (2014-01-13 22:26:45)


Mike C

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#4 2014-01-13 19:00:32

ANOKNUSA
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Registered: 2010-10-22
Posts: 2,141

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

I updated my system last night; the update included a handful of non-critical stuff (lirc-utils, p7zip) and the linux-3.12.7-1 package. After rebooting, the system hung at a blank screen with an unresponsive keyboard, forcing a hard reset. Since I myself do have a LUKS-on-LVM setup, and a libgcrypt update was on its way, I figured this would be resolved pretty quickly; so I downgraded to linux-3.12.6 and the system booted just fine. To be clear: Kernel 3.12.7 won't even begin to boot; it hangs at the point where it should be searching for an encrypted block device and never seems to find it.

There have been two updates since then, including libgcrypt, cryptsetup and a small version bump to the kernel, but still my system won't boot kernel 3.12.7. So long as I'm running 3.12.6 the system boots without error; there aren't any pacman errors, and libgcrypt and cryptsetup were updated (and I haven't downgraded them), so it must be something kernel-specific. Seems folks on the mailing list are reporting similar issues, with the kernel not booting unless libgcrypt is updated first and separately.

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#5 2014-01-13 19:35:23

maxwellsdemon137
Member
Registered: 2014-01-13
Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

I ran pacman -Syu earlier today and encountered problems. I was able to fix them after the update for libgcrypt was available. I booted from the Arch Linux installation CD, and then used pacstrap to reinstall base, and then to install the updated libgcrypt. I'm not sure if the reinstallation of base was necessary, to be sure. But everything's working fine after doing this.

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#6 2014-01-13 20:31:56

mcloaked
Member
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2012-02-02
Posts: 1,222

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

I have finally recovered my systems by booting into an install usbkey as a rescue medium, and chrooting into the root partition on my system in order to fix the packages. First it was necessary to  make Siglevel = Never, in /etc/pacman.conf as suggested in a related thread in this forum. Next I downgraded the kernel before updating libgcrypt. Then reset SigLevel to normal in pacman.conf, and did pacman -Syu which then updated the kernel to current along with a few other updates.

The system then immediately booted normally again without problems.

It would have been nice to have had a coordinated upload of the libgcrypt package with the kernel to the mirrors as well as an announcement warning people not to reboot until the libgcrypt package was up to date.

[Added note: For anyone who got caught by updating in the relatively short period between when the new kernel hit the mirrors and when libgcrypt arrived on the same mirror it became a worry when the system failed to reboot.  Anyone who updated after libgcrypt was updated I guess had no problem. Also anyone who didn't reboot after the new kernel was in but waited till the second update to libgcrypt happened before booting was also not affected.

So it is hopefully only a relatively small number of people like me, who happened to reboot after the new kernel arrived but before libgcrypt was updated that had the problem.  Anyone who found themselves unable to boot could fix their system quite easily, provided a rescue disk or usbkey was available to enable chrooting in to run the vital additional pacman update.

OK on the moderator's comment below - I guess an announcement was not necessary but a pointer to how to recover in the event that a user was unlucky to hit this problem would have been useful]

Last edited by mcloaked (2014-01-13 22:29:47)


Mike C

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#7 2014-01-13 21:39:46

brettski
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Registered: 2013-06-21
Posts: 18
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Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

mcloaked wrote:

There really needed to have been a coordinated upload of the libgcrypt package with the kernel top the mirrors as well as an announcement warning people not to reboot until the libgcrypt package was up to date.

I agree with that... this was a rather unpleasant surprise!

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#8 2014-01-13 21:44:14

jasonwryan
Anarchist
From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

It's a glitch, not a major event requiring a announcement.


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

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#9 2014-01-14 00:21:37

EvilRobot
Member
Registered: 2010-02-23
Posts: 26

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

Just thought I'd mention how I fixed this issue in Emergancy Mode. You need to be very patient for Emergancy Mode to initiate during the boot process and you wont be able to connect to the Internet either while in Emergancy Mode, I think that might be because of systemd not being able to start NetworkManager.

Once in Emergancy Mode mount /boot (you'll need it) downgrade the linux kernel and systemd then reboot. When the system is rebooting it might hang again (it did for me) at this point you should be able swtich to a different tty and login as root then run a system update with pacman.

The reason I downgraded systemd was because when I was in Emergancy Mode systemctl did not work, I just keept getting an error message conmplaining that libgcrypt.so.20 could not be found.

Well that's what worked for me, hope this helps.


*Edit: Forgot to mention to mount /boot

Last edited by EvilRobot (2014-01-14 00:59:54)

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#10 2014-01-14 00:34:03

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

The libgcrypt was suppoed to be pushed to [core] at the same time as a few other packages that rely on it.  It was somehow overlooked and skipped for a very short time.  If the mirror you use synced during that time period, you would have ended up with the old libgcrypt remaining on your system.  Now everything should be sorted out and the mirrors should be okay. (Unless you use a crappy mirror)

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#11 2014-01-14 06:16:52

Stebalien
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Registered: 2010-04-27
Posts: 1,237
Website

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

Is there any chance we can start using versioned dependencies for rebuilds? That is, the rebuilt packages would have depended on 'libgcrypt>=1.6.0'. While I understand that Arch does not support partial upgrades and thus versioned dependencies are rarely used, they would prevent problems like this.


Steven [ web : git ]
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Do not email: honeypot@stebalien.com

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#12 2014-01-14 16:41:39

ANOKNUSA
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Registered: 2010-10-22
Posts: 2,141

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

I'm still experiencing this problem. My system is 100% up-to-date, except for kernel 3.12.7. So long as I use 3.12.6, my LUKS+LVM setup boots just fine; if I update to 3.12.7, it doesn't boot at all (the initramfs doesn't even load). Since every bit of advice on these forums and the mailing list amounts to "Boot into a LiveCD and update the system" (which I already did), I'm stumped.  I've tried different mirrors, I've tried reinstalling base, I've tried downgrading libgcrypt, the kernel and cryptsetup and updating the former before the latter, I've tried building a stock kernel from ABS---I've even tried installing the kernel and libgcrypt with the dreaded --force flag, in case a library just isn't getting properly upgraded. The only thing I haven't tried (per the thread title) is booting with a legacy bootloader, as I have two encrypted GPT disks and no GPT boot partition.

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#13 2014-01-14 16:50:31

Scimmia
Fellow
Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,466

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

Completely separate issue, ANOKNUSA. Please don't threadjack.

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#14 2014-01-14 17:25:06

MannImMond
Member
Registered: 2012-10-24
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

mcloaked wrote:

[...]as an announcement warning people not to reboot [..]

Actually I had the same issue and a "warning" coming up when trying to reboot:

shutdown: error while loading shared libraries: libgcrypt.so.20: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

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#15 2014-01-14 17:51:01

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

Just an FYI for anyone who may come here seeking answers.  If you are going to boot from a live CD or USB, instead of chrooting and setting 'SigLevel = Never', you may as well just use 'pacman -Syu --root /mountpoint' from the live media itself.  Since the pacman in the livemedia works, this will allow you to both fix your system while checking the signature at the same time.

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#16 2014-01-27 19:31:09

h0wser
Member
Registered: 2014-01-27
Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

WonderWoofy wrote:

Just an FYI for anyone who may come here seeking answers.  If you are going to boot from a live CD or USB, instead of chrooting and setting 'SigLevel = Never', you may as well just use 'pacman -Syu --root /mountpoint' from the live media itself.  Since the pacman in the livemedia works, this will allow you to both fix your system while checking the signature at the same time.

A bit late to the party.

I tried repairing my install using the liveCD and chroot but it didn't work. This did though so just wanted to let people know that they should try this if they can't fix it with chroot.

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#17 2015-09-30 14:09:05

Scriptiee
Member
Registered: 2013-11-13
Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

That is some cockup that causes quite a bit of hassle alright.

Last edited by Scriptiee (2015-09-30 14:51:57)

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#18 2015-09-30 15:08:03

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
Website

Re: [SOLVED] pacman kernel update today gives unbootable system - uefi

Scriptiee, please do not "necrobump" old threads - especially for a pointless empty post.

Closed.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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