kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

rmlopes · 2018-03-28 17:35:44

Hi,

Earlier today I had a kernel panic while trying to mount a usb pen (I guess it had something to do with lack of space in the hard-drive). After that I could not boot int Arch anymore. First I had the typical message saying something like:

> not syncing
> ...unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)

I was able to get hold of a tty and re-run "pacman -Syu" after which the error message changed, but I cannot get hold of a tty anymore, since it goes to emergency state and I don't have the keyboard working.

I tried the usual solutions that seemed to work to everyone (using live pen, and chroot to my installation ):

1) pacman -Syu
2) pacman -S linux
3) re-run grub-mkconfig
3) pacman -S udev
4) pacman -S filesystem (although it was ok, since I had the symbolic links to /usr)
5) mount the boot partition into /boot and run mkinitcpio

I was able to complete all of these with success, althouigh it did not change anything. The messages I get before the emergency state come from kmod, system-udevd and systemd-tmpfiles, about not finding liblzma, and also the typical "can't find UUID=...." (with the reference to dev/sda6 as presented in fstab).

The computer came with windows pre-installation, and it has a boot partition (sda1).It is a work computer, the first and only I have with a boot partition and windows pre-installation. I was told to keep the pre-install because of legal stuff, so I partitioned my free space to have an arch system partition (sda6), the home partition (sda7) and the swap (as shown in the parted output along with the filesystems).

I have installed arch something like two years ago, I remember I had to fix grub after installation, but it was quick and everything worked perfectly until today. I was following wiki instructions, I thought maybe from UEFI sections of the page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB, but I start to doubt it as I don't seem to have efibootmgr installed.

I send bellow the info about my system hoping that someone will have an educated guess on how to fix this, since everything I found I have tried and nothing works. Let me know if I need to provide more information.

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>	<dir>	<type>	<options>	<dump>	<pass>
# /dev/sda6
UUID=0f8a7e5e-d970-440c-b1ff-9cdae843c8c1	/         	ext4      	rw,relatime,data=ordered	0 1

# /dev/sda7
UUID=90f8a736-b356-4026-8001-1f80f041da22	/home     	ext4      	rw,relatime,data=ordered	0 2

# /dev/sda5
UUID=46623ad5-3606-44cf-a0c3-990d6c3024ed	none      	swap      	defaults  	0 0

#lsblk output
NAME   FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
loop0                    
sda                      
├─sda1                   
├─sda2                   
├─sda3                   
├─sda5                   
├─sda6                   /
└─sda7                   /home
sdb                      
├─sdb1                   
└─sdb2

#boot directory (not boot partition)
total 53868
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root     4096 Mar 28 17:27 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root     4096 Mar 28 18:03 ..
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root        7 Mar 28 15:52 bin -> usr/bin
-rw-r--r--  1 root root     2490 Mar 28 15:52 buildconfig
-rw-r--r--  1 root root       64 Mar 28 15:52 config
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 dev
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 etc
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root     4096 Mar 28 17:32 grub
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 hooks
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     2093 Mar 28 15:52 init
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    13140 Mar 28 15:52 init_functions
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 28214199 Mar 28 18:14 initramfs-linux-fallback.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 20025570 Mar 28 18:14 initramfs-linux.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1668608 Mar 14 20:17 intel-ucode.img
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root        7 Mar 28 15:52 lib -> usr/lib
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root        7 Mar 28 15:52 lib64 -> usr/lib
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 new_root
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 proc
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 run
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root        7 Mar 28 15:52 sbin -> usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 sys
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 tmp
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root     4096 Mar 28 15:52 usr
-rw-r--r--  1 root root        2 Mar 28 15:52 VERSION
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  5158768 Mar 25 13:13 vmlinuz-linux

#parted output
Model: ATA MTFDDAK256MAM-1K (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 256GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  368MB  367MB   primary   ntfs            boot
 2      368MB   107GB  107GB   primary   ntfs
 3      107GB   256GB  149GB   extended                  lba
 5      107GB   109GB  2154MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)
 6      109GB   152GB  43.0GB  logical   ext4
 7      152GB   256GB  104GB   logical   ext4

I have gone back and mounted the boot partition as well. I noticed now that the first time I did the pacman -Syu it wrote into that partitions Boot directory. mkinitcpio writes into the /boot directory of sda6 though. I now I can change it, but then I am not sure where to mount the boot partition and where to point when using mkinitcpio.

#Boot parttition
total 417
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   4096 Mar 28 18:11 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root     80 Mar 29 10:57 ..
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root   8192 Mar 28 15:44 Boot
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 403390 Feb 10  2016 bootmgr
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root      1 Jun 18  2013 BOOTNXT
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   8192 May 26  2015 BOOTSECT.BAK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 May 25  2015 Recovery
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 May 25  2015 System Volume Information

#boot parttion's Boot directory
total 1288
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    8192 Mar 28 15:44 .
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Mar 28 18:11 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   24576 Mar 29 09:50 BCD
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   20480 May 26  2015 BCD.LOG
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 May 26  2015 BCD.LOG1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 May 26  2015 BCD.LOG2
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 bg-BG
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   65536 May 26  2015 BOOTSTAT.DAT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 cs-CZ
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 da-DK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 de-DE
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 el-GR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 en-GB
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 en-US
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 es-ES
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 et-EE
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 fi-FI
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Mar 28 15:44 Fonts
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 fr-FR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 hr-HR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 hu-HU
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 it-IT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 ja-JP
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 ko-KR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 lt-LT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 lv-LV
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1191768 Sep 29  2015 memtest.exe
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 nb-NO
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 nl-NL
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 pl-PL
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 pt-BR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 pt-PT
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 qps-ploc
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 May 26  2015 Resources
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 ro-RO
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 ru-RU
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 sk-SK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 sl-SI
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 sr-Latn-CS
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 sr-Latn-RS
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 sv-SE
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 tr-TR
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 uk-UA
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 zh-CN
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 zh-HK
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root       0 Mar 28 15:44 zh-TW

Last edited by rmlopes (2018-03-29 10:43:48)

Trilby · 2018-03-28 17:47:44

This makes very little sense. Remember, we are not sitting in front of your computer - we only know what you tell us. Please explain your problem with that in mind:

rmlopes wrote:

I tried the usual solutions that seemed to work to everyone.

What exactly would these be? Are we supposed to know?

rmlopes wrote:

In the meanwhile I have reinstalled the packages linux, udev, filesystem, no success.

How? Via chroot from a live medium? What do you mean by "no success"? Were you not able to reinstall these packages, or did it just not change the situation?

rmlopes wrote:

The computer came with windows pre-installation, and it has a boot partition... I remember I had to fix grub after installation (following the instructions for EFI)

What? This is the most important thing to clarify. Is this an UEFI machine or is it BIOS? You do not have a boot partition listed for linux - you would need to for EFI - or perhaps you have one, but you aren't mounting it. This would cause problems and could very well explain your symptoms.

EDIT: actually your partitions make no sense at all. Your linux partitions are all in extended/logical partitions on an MBR disk, so this is not EFI (plus none of the partitions are EFI partitions). But I thought boot partitions had to be primary partitions. So where is your /boot? What filesystem is your kernel on? What are you not telling us here ... this doesn't add up.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-03-28 17:54:11)

rmlopes · 2018-03-29 10:45:06

Thanks for the reply @Trilby. I posted at the end of the workday, I was tired and frustrated, but I have edited to clarify the situation. I have included more info about the boot partition and how the hard drive setup came to be.

EDIT: looking at your comments and the grub wiki oage I guess I have the situatuion "Windows installed in BIOS-MBR mode"

I have a custom grub.d entry for windows:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

if [ "${grub_platform}" == "pc" ]; then
  menuentry "Microsoft Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 BIOS-MBR" {
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ntfs
    insmod search_fs_uuid
    insmod ntldr
    search --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos1 44980B48980B3846
    ntldr /bootmgr
  }
fi

all the other files were generated by grub-mkconfig.

Last edited by rmlopes (2018-03-29 10:55:16)

WorMzy · 2018-03-29 11:20:38

Mod note: Not an installation issue, moving to NC.

Trilby · 2018-03-29 12:15:56

Ok, now you are talking about a separate boot partition - but what/where is it? What partition are you using for your linux boot partition? Why isn't it listed in fstab? Why is it not normally mounted?

You are now showing the contents of the windows ntfs boot partition. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to use an ntfs partition for a linux boot (and even if it could work it'd be a pretty bad idea). But more importantly, there is no kernel or initramfs listed in the content of that partition. So again, what you are saying simply doesn't add up.

What instructions did you follow to initially install this system?

EDIT: and what the hell ... you have a full root filesystem in the "boot directory" listing along with the kernel and initramfs. The only thing more concerning about how clueless I am about what could be going on here is how clueless you seem to be about what is going on.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-03-29 12:27:57)

seth · 2018-03-29 12:48:22

That "boot partition" seems to be the windows booloader, raising the question what (chain of) bootloader(s) are actually in use.
The symptoms however very much sound like "kernel update (mount failure) gone wrong (boot failure)".

rmlopes · 2018-03-29 12:56:25

Trilby wrote:

The only thing more concerning about how clueless I am about what could be going on here is how clueless you seem to be about what is going on

Bear with me, I installed it two years ago and I have never had any major issue with it.

Trilby wrote:

Ok, now you are talking about a separate boot partition - but what/where is it? What partition are you using for your linux boot partition? Why isn't it listed in fstab? Why is it not normally mounted?

The separate boot partition is the windows boot partition that came with the pre-install. I don't have a separate boot partition for linux. I thought everything would simply go into /boot. However, I am not aware anymore how the link goes between the windows boot and grub.

Trilby wrote:

You are now showing the contents of the windows ntfs boot partition. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to use an ntfs partition for a linux boot (and even if it could work it'd be a pretty bad idea). But more importantly, there is no kernel or initramfs listed in the content of that partition. So again, what you are saying simply doesn't add up.

Should there be? at some point when I mounted the widnows boot partition into boot and ran makeinitcpio then I got the image there but as it did not change anything I deleted it.

Trilby wrote:

What instructions did you follow to initially install this system?

these: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide. If I remember correctly I repartitioned the disk in windows and skipped that part, follwing through the format, etc.
then for grub I probably followed the BIOS MBR instructions since it is what I have and I don't have installed the efibootmanager. From there I run grub-mkconfig. After that I did not have the windows boot option. That is the fix that I had to do. hence the custom entry in grub.d

Last edited by rmlopes (2018-03-29 12:59:20)

seth · 2018-03-29 13:07:53

Please post "lsblk -f" and /boot/grub/grub.cfg and clarify whether the first thing you see is grub or the windows bootloader.

Trilby · 2018-03-29 13:28:51

rmlopes wrote:

The separate boot partition is the windows boot partition that came with the pre-install... at some point when I mounted the widnows boot partition into boot and ran makeinitcpio

This was part of the confusion. If that is the *windows* boot partition only, you shouldn't ever need to mount it in your arch system, and you definitely shouldn't mount it on /boot as that masks your actual kernel and initramfs (and any changes to the kernel and initramfs are dumped on an irrelevant ntfs partition).

So you do not have a separate boot partition for linux. But this goes back to an earlier concern: ~~I do not beleive a linux boot partition can be on an extended/logical partiton of an MBR disk. I could be wrong on this, though.~~ (edit: I've found other support threads attempting to use grub with extended partitions ... none of them are working, but no one is suggesting it is not possible as I had suspected.)

It's also not clear why you had a directory listing with all the root filesystem contents side by side with the kernel and initramfs. That's definitely a problem. It's not clear if this was just do to some odd double-mounting or not.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-03-29 14:16:10)

rmlopes · 2018-03-29 13:36:06

seth wrote:

Please post "lsblk -f" and /boot/grub/grub.cfg and clarify whether the first thing you see is grub or the windows bootloader.

The lsblk output is in the original post. I see a small menu flashing on the screen for a fraction of a second just before the grub "window" with the menu options opens (so I think it is grub related as well and not the windows bootloader, but I am not sure).The grub.cfg is autogenerated. https://gist.github.com/rmlopes/44ddc83 … e38c738e4a

seth · 2018-03-29 13:39:02

No idea how you generated that, but it lacks UUID FSTYPE and LABEL (where the latter is cosmetic, the UUID is crucial)

Arch Linux

#1 2018-03-28 17:35:44

kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#2 2018-03-28 17:47:44

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#3 2018-03-29 10:45:06

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#4 2018-03-29 11:20:38

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#5 2018-03-29 12:15:56

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#6 2018-03-29 12:48:22

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#7 2018-03-29 12:56:25

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#8 2018-03-29 13:07:53

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#9 2018-03-29 13:28:51

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#10 2018-03-29 13:36:06

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

#11 2018-03-29 13:39:02

Re: kernel panic, liblzma,not solvable with reinstallation mkinitcpio

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