[SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot

sigils · 2016-10-24 04:24:35

It was not a complete gdm-plymouth upgrade. I suspect I rebooted without actually installing gdm-plymouth. Arch stopped booting afterward.

I tried to fix this via the arch installation liveusb, but I may have further complicated the issue and am not sure what direction I should take short of a complete system reinstall.

Initially, I see a GUI tty prompt for the luks lvm passphrase. Upon entering the correct passphrase, the spinner splash screen spins and the screen brightens as it would during a successful login attempt then freezes. On the console I see:

 
....
[ OK ] Started Emergency Shell
[ OK ] Reached target Emergency Mode.
... <repeats>

A password is required to access the <name_of_logical_group> volume
/dev/mapper/<name_of_root_partition>: clean 31589/ 1638400 files...
[ FAILED ] Failed to mount /boot
See 'systemctl status boot.mount' for detaisl
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
[ OK ] Reached target timers
[ OK ] Reached target Network (Pre).
[ OK ] Reached target Network.
[ OK ] Reached target Paths.
[ OK ] Reached target Sockets.
[ OK ] Started Emergency Shell.
[ OK ] Reached target Emegency Mode.
[ OK ] Activated swap /swapfile
[ OK ] Reached target Swap
          Mounting /tmp/makepkg/
[ OK ] Mounted /tmp/makepkg/
[ OK ] Started Flush Journal to Persistent Storage.
          Starting Create Volatile Files and Directories...
[ OK ] Started FIle System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/<ui_of_home_dir?>
          Mounting /home...
[ OK ] Started FIle System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/<ui_of_var/www_dir?>
          Mountng /var/www...
[ OK ] Started Create Volatile Files and Directories
          Starting Update UTMP about System Boot/Shutdown...
           Starting Network Time Synchronization....
[ OK ]  Started Update UTMP about System Boot/Shutdown.
[ OK ] Mounted /home.
[ OK ] Mounted /var/www.
[ OK ] Started Network Time Synchronization.
[ OK ] Reached target System Time Synchronized.
[ OK ] Started LVM2 PV Scan on device 254:0.
You are in Emergency mode. After logging in type "journalctl xb" to view system logs,
 "systemctl reboot" to reboot, "systemctl default" or^ Dto try again to boot into default mode.

Give root password for maintinence:

<hostname_here># systemctl status boot.mount
[red-circle-here] boout.mount - /boot 
Loaded: loaded (/etc/fstab; generated; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2016-10-23 19:54:31 PDT; 9min ago
Where: /boot
What: /dev/disk/by-uuid/B066-B063 <not a UUID given in above output>
Docs: man:fstab(5)
          man:systemd-fstab-generator(8)
Process: 453 ExecMount=/usr/bin/mount /dev/disk/by-uuid/B066--B063 /boot -t vfat -o rw,relatime,fmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1, shortnamed=mixed,errors=remount-ro (code=exited, status=32)

Oct 23 19:54:31: sigils mount[453]: mount:unknown filesystem type 'vfat'
Oct 23 19:54:31: boot.mount: Directory /boot to mount over is not empty, mounting anyway.
Oct 23 19:54:31: Mounting /boot...
Oct 23 19:54:31: boot.mount: Mount process exited, code=exited status=32
Oct 23 19:54:31: Failed to mount/boot.
Oct 23 19:54:31: boot.mount: Unit entered failed state.

I am using systemd-boot installed into a windows 10 UEFI boot partition as I saw on the Arch wiki and has been working fine.I'm not sure where the error(s) might be. I have been booting into system with an Arch liveusb and trying things like the Arch Rollback Machine method, reinstalling the packages to their upgraded versions, and -- what produced the above -- uninstalling gdm-plymouth etc and installing gnome and gdm (then starting the gdm.service).

There were no boot issues prior.. My next thought before reinstallation was removing the luks encryption and hoping that would resolve the inability to login. Thoughts?

More info coming up (like /etc/fstab and more..) If any other output would be useful, please let me know.

Last edited by sigils (2016-10-24 07:43:57)

jasonwryan · 2016-10-24 04:59:42

Remove all the cruft that you don't need: plymouth, GDM, Gome, etc., and just get your setup working to a TTY login. Then start adding complexity.

sigils · 2016-10-24 08:18:58

Thank you, Jason. A resounding sentiment: simplicity.

This issue was caused by different linux kernel headers existing within the initramfs.img / vmlinuz-linux files than in the /usr/ modules as recorded by pacman.

It's seems to happen somewhat often enough to have a number of threads (sorry I didn't know what I was looking for at first) devoted to it.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=194797

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=167337

 
uname -r
4.8.3-1.ARCH

 
pacman -Qi
4.8.4-1.ARCH

I introduced this error when I was chrooted into the mounted system and ran 'pacman -Syu' without having mounted the UEFI boot partition. I suspended the upgrade mid-way as well. I was able to solve this by:
1. mounting both the root and the boot partitions
2. using the curl -O command to download the linux kernel version that matched what uname returned see the wiki (however, this may have not been necessary
3. pacman -U to install the linux header
4. pacman -Syu to upgade and create the proper files for the boot partition automatically

Arch Linux

#1 2016-10-24 04:24:35

[SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot

#2 2016-10-24 04:59:42

Re: [SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot

#3 2016-10-24 08:18:58

Re: [SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot

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