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On Saturday evening my laptop was running fine. I powered off normally, but when I tried booting again on Sunday afternoon Grub was taking ages to show and then I got a kernel panic no init found error.
I tried booting from an Ubuntu live USB and it booted normally.
I created an arch live usb (2 years old) and the first screen appeared normally, but when I chose to boot I got the same error as with my installed system.
I don't know what happened. I didn't install anything or update.
Two things I can think of are the following:
1. On Saturday there was an electric storm and so I used my laptop on battery until it said "hibernating" but it went to sleep, not hibernate. At the moment I was using a Bluetooth keyboard and when the laptop went to sleep I switched the keyboard off. When I did this my laptop woke up and I saved my work and powered off. Later on when the storm was over, I turned it on again worked for an hour or so and powered off.
The second thing is between Saturday and Sunday there was a daylight savings time change where I am staying. Could there be a bug related to this? And if so, is there a way to manually change the timezone through the Ubuntu live USB?
Last edited by entodoays (2018-11-24 23:20:28)
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Grub was taking ages to show and then I got a kernel panic no init found error
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SMART
You can eg. use https://grml.org/
I'm not sure why an ISO should tell you that no init was found, except if you didn't actually boot the iso.
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I have a very weak internet connection where I'm living at the moment so it is not possible to download a live system iso. However, Gnome Disks present in the Ubuntu live USB says that the HDD's health is OK. Isn't this a GUI of SMART? Unfortunately smartctl doesn't seem to come preinstalled in the live USB.
Also, while on the live USB, I'm able to browse my files and copy them easily, so it doesn't seem like a physical problem with the HDD.
Regarding the Arch USB, I'm booting the usb and get the Arch live USB bootloader with "load x64, load i386, Boot existing system, power off, restart" options. I tried the first option and got the kernel panic. I tried the third option and it doesn't boot, but restarts the system.
Would it be safe to reinstall grub through Ubuntu liveUSB?
Any help would be apreciated, cause at the moment I've no access to my OS and programs.
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I would suggest using the arch installation media chroot in and post the output of the following (see the tip box from Pastebin_clients to post output from the console)
pacman -Qkk
ls /boot
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I'm not able to boot the arch installation media. It's giving me the sam error as the installed system. It may be reading something from my system during boot that is causing the problem which the Ubuntu disk doesn't.
Maybe it makes a difference that the Ubuntu disk is a multiboot USB having the iso files and custom grub.cfg whereas the Arch one is created through dd.
Last edited by entodoays (2018-11-05 22:46:47)
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Chroot#Using_chroot chan you chroot using those instructions from the Ubuntu media?
If you mount the directory containing the arch installations /boot from Ubuntu can you get the listing that way?
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You can also use smartctl from the ubuntu medium (given it ships it, I've no idea what that gnome thing is), check all fields - not just a general "health" condition that might be infered from whatever.
The ability to copy random files is meaningless - the issue seems isolated to the secotors on the /boot partition.
Nothing of this provides a good explanation for the failing iso, except oc. if you dumped a compromised file from the damaged disk. Did you perform a hash check on the used image?
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I checked the whole SMART data in Gnome disks and everything was OK.
I suspected that it had something to do with the Swap partition since even the Ubuntu live CD was giving errors. So in Gnome Disks I formatted the swap partition and voila, my system booted. I got a one and a half minute wait checking a partition (the swap partition?), but then it booted normally.
In Gnome Disks, this time in Arch, it says that the Swap partition is not being used, because since I formatted the partition the UUID changed. I'm editing FSTAB to reflect the change and rebooting to see if the problem returns and report back.
I'm marking this as Solved.
Last edited by entodoays (2018-11-06 17:10:05)
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I can definitely confirm that the problem is solved, even while using the newly-formatted swap partition.
Last edited by entodoays (2018-11-07 21:35:37)
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I spoke too early. The problem returned after a couple of reboots. I tried formatting the Swap partition again but to no avail.
I tried reinstalling grub through the Ubuntu liveUSB.
I tried copying the Arch and Windows 10 entries in the grub.cfg in my boot folder to the grub.cfg of my multiboot pendrive but neither system boots. There's a lot of hard disk activity after I try booting any of the two but I remain with a blank screen.
At this point I'm considering, as a last resort, trying to install Ubuntu in the Arch partition, at least temporarily, but before I do, after copying the grub entries is there anything else I need to do for this to possibly work?
Any other suggestions?
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Fun fact: "formatting" your swap partition is gonna do nothing at all (or at least not impact beyond the next reboot and before you're at best causing damage)
I tried copying the Arch and Windows 10 entries in the grub.cfg in my boot folder to the grub.cfg of my multiboot pendrive
Unless you fixed UUIDs to load the proper kernel for the initramfs this is not going to work - neither is copying the config and trying to boot the installed kernel on the old initramfs.
You need to become more specific in your assertions and descriptions "i tried to … do something but it doesn't work" bears no usable information at all.
Let's start w/ the basics:
"sudo smartctl -a" - you can utilize https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … in_clients but please no paraphrases about indications by some stupid GUI, we need to see the actual data to make an informed suggestion about the condition of your disk.
Next thing is the output of "file /boot/vmlinuz-linux" (for the vmlinux of your installed arch kernel) and "stat /usr/bin/init" and "lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img"
If you can, chroot into the installed system and run "pacman -Qs linux" and "pacman -Qkk", providing the output of either.
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I managed to run all commands except smartctl but I've the whole data from Gnome Disks in a screenshot.
Smart data https://freeimage.host/i/HTBbs and https://freeimage.host/i/HTnzG
Output of file
/boot/vmlinuz-linux
http://sprunge.us/nk2lG1
Output of
stat /usr/bin/init
http://sprunge.us/YKM8LN
Output of
lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img
(run from inside chroot) http://sprunge.us/y33dZI
Output of
lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img
after running mkinitcpio -p linux http://sprunge.us/bsVHlr
Output of
pacman -Qs linux
http://sprunge.us/2uQ8nW
Output of
pacman -Qkk
Mkinitcpio didn't solve the problem. It seems there's a problem with the kernel file amongst other things. What would you suggest?
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You didn't mount the boot partition (and the new initcpio was created in the /boot path of the root partition, thus is irrelevant)
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I don't have a boot partition.
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Then why was there no initramfs? What's the status after a reboot? To be sure: you're booting BIOS/MBR, not UEFI/GPT? "lsblk -f"?
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I've little time to solve this problem, but I managed to download an arch monthly iso and get a working live Usb.
I ran a smartctl -a on my hard disk and got these results http://sprunge.us/yhZJHa. The test says "passed" but there are errors at the end of the results.
This is the fdisk -l result http://sprunge.us/Rjrob6
I tried to reinstall grub and to reinstall the Linux package (within arch-chroot), but the problem remains.
Now I'm only getting a "Loading Grub" message, a lot of hard disk activity, but no grub menu.
Last edited by entodoays (2018-11-15 19:03:59)
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I shrinked the Arch partition, installed Ubuntu in the space created and now I'm able to boot Ubuntu and Windows, but not Arch.
When I try to boot Arch I get the error Vfs error cannot mount rootfs.
But fstab has an entry for / for the uuid of the Arch root partition.
Any ideas what I might try to solve the problem?
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When I try to boot Arch I get the error Vfs error cannot mount rootfs.
But fstab has an entry for / for the uuid of the Arch root partition.
This sounds like the problem occurs during initramfs phase, before fstab is processed .
We need more info.
What is the command line grub uses to start archlinux ?
Can you take a pic of the screen that shows the vfs error ?
also lsblk -f (as seth asked) from any working environment might help
Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.
(A works at time B) && (time C > time B ) ≠ (A works at time C)
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Can you boot the failsafe initramfs?
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Here's the photo of the Vfs error:
https://iili.io/HNjyX.jpg
Here's the result of lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
loop0 squashfs /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/59
loop1 squashfs /snap/core/4486
loop2 squashfs /snap/gnome-logs/25
loop3 squashfs /snap/gnome-system-monitor/36
loop4 squashfs /snap/gnome-characters/69
loop5 squashfs /snap/gnome-calculator/154
sda
├─sda1 ntfs System B464546B6454327A
├─sda2 ntfs TI30811500A 6AD85948D8591423
├─sda3 ntfs HDDRECOVERY 44E26032E26029FE
├─sda4
├─sda5 ext4 Home dc097e4a-db19-4dd6-8ce0-d09c7327ff40
├─sda6 swap 75d2b00e-fdad-422f-994a-6248bc1b5e2a [SWAP]
├─sda7 ntfs Data 04DAA6565463D7FB /mnt/Data
├─sda8 ext4 e80cbe57-f25c-47c4-812f-87669580e673
└─sda9 ext4 e18796cc-7f55-4761-bc85-4d304bc879a7 /
sr0
and here's the grub entry:
menuentry 'Arch Linux (on /dev/sda8)' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-e80cbe57-f25c-47c4-812f-87669580e673' {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,msdos8'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos8 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos8 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos8 e80cbe57-f25c-47c4-812f-87669580e673
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root e80cbe57-f25c-47c4-812f-87669580e673
fi
linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=e80cbe57-f25c-47c4-812f-87669580e673 rw quiet intel_iommu=igfx_off
initrd /boot/intel-ucode.img
}
Mod edit -- Replaced oversized image with a link -- V1del
Last edited by V1del (2018-11-17 17:08:16)
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So root= is obviously pointing at the wrong partition.
Edit: depending on exactly where that lsblk is from.
Last edited by Scimmia (2018-11-17 17:10:29)
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I had tried to boot the fallback entry before without success. I tried again now and succeeded. I got an error on boot:
Timed out waiting for device dev-disk-by\x2duuid-7d4873fc\x2dc21f\x2d4172\x2d977f\x2d2fb7c1667f24.device.
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I ran lsblk -f in Ubuntu on sda9. Arch is on sda8.
I ran mkinitcpio -p linux before, but it didn't solve the problem.
What should I do?
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Make sure the /sbin symlink is in place, mount all necessary partitions somewhere, arch-chroot in (or equivalent), and check systemd with ldd, make sure everything is there.
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Root in grub is pointing to the correct partition.
I'm not sure what to do about the dbin symlink or how to check systemd with ldd. Can you explain better?
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