Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

thinkanish · 2022-01-29 17:40:02

Hello,

I updated my arch system after a long time (> 3 years). There was very few gnupg key problems during update which I solved.
But finally after the update, it was complaining about some "hooks"
Since the update was done, I went ahead and rebooted the system. But after reboot, the system is stuck in GRUB.

When I select Arch Linux (both normal and advanced options),
It display the below message and goes back to the GRUB selection.

Loading Linux, linux ...
error : file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found
Loading initial ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue...

Is there any way I can recover? or should I re-update with a live USB?

Thanks.

V1del · 2022-01-29 18:44:17

to give us any useful information you'd need to access the system anyway, so yes, check with a live system and potentially post the pacman.log to know what actually happened. Three years is a long time and there are many mandatory news steps that you may/may not have skipped past that would still be necessary: https://archlinux.org/news/

Slithery · 2022-01-29 18:56:06

https://archlinux.org/news/moving-to-zs … kinitcpio/
I'm sure there are more as well. Arch isn't designed to go that long without an update so read the news.
Using the ALA to step forward a few months at a time is usually recommended rather than trying to update in one go.

Scimmia · 2022-01-29 23:14:39

The ALA would likely require ignoring signatures entirely, though.

Slithery · 2022-01-29 23:59:48

Scimmia wrote:

The ALA would likely require ignoring signatures entirely, though.

Yep. I recently updated a system that was a few years out of date and had to temporarily disable signature-checking. I did proceed to check the signatures of the latest packages after the system was up to date though.
I know it's not an ideal solution but this wasn't a mission-critical machine - the mirror I use is also under my control.

thinkanish · 2022-01-30 04:24:26

Hello,

Thanks for your replies.
Yes I agree its been a long period. In-fact, the kernel version was 5.0

I used live USB and booted into the system and pacman.log does not contain any of the "hook" related errors which appeared before I restarted the system which led to its downfall.
I will post the pacman.log file which was around 2MB. Meanwhile, I just thought of registering that pacman log just has the "packages updated" message at the end.

Thanks.

V1del · 2022-01-30 13:58:37

If all hooks failed then yes at the minimum mkinitcpio will not have ran, which you could "fix" by running mkinitcpio -P from the chroot with all proper partitions mounted.

thinkanish · 2022-01-30 17:26:04

Hello,
Thanks V1del.
I was trying to upload pacman.log but with no luck.

My installation is peculiar as to I am not able to run pacman from the chroot.

For example, when I run

pacman -S linux

I get an error saying

error: failed to initialize alpm library:
(root: /, dbpath, /var/lib/pacman/)
could not find or read directory

The same problem with mkinitcpio.

ERROR : No presets fond in /etc/mkinitcpio.d

I think the pacman is found in another partition (not sure may be it is broken).
My root partition is /dev/sda7. I think I have created a separate partition for /home which is /dev/sda8
Now, there is a folder called /lib/pacman in the /dev/sda8. but not in /dev/sda7

Does any one know how to solve this situation?

thanks.

Last edited by thinkanish (2022-01-30 17:26:45)

seth · 2022-01-30 17:32:25

And what structure does exist on /dev/sda7?

thinkanish · 2022-01-31 04:17:06

Here is the structure :

/dev/sda5 (boot)
boot  grub  lost+found

/dev/sda6 (swap)

/dev/sda7 (root)
bin  boot  dev  etc  home  lib  lib64  lost+found  media  mnt  opt  proc  root  run  sbin  slim.png  srv  sys  tmp  usr  var

/dev/sda8 (pacman cache ?)
abs  cache  db  empty  games  lib  local  lock  log  lost+found  mail  opt  run  spool  tmp

/dev/sda9 (home)
uname  lost+found

I guess I was wrong in my previous post to say /dev/sda8 is the home partition. It turns out that the home is sda9.
sda8 seems to be some kind of pacman cache. I forgot about this partition setup, as I did it some 10 years ago.

Is this kind of setup good?
Is it possible to repair it from the live usb?

Thanks.

Last edited by thinkanish (2022-01-31 05:26:06)

seth · 2022-01-31 07:25:27

sda8 is /var

I forgot about this partition setup, as I did it some 10 years ago.

Is it possible to repair it from the live usb?

When was the last time you updated the system before and what errors are you facing?
10 years probably crosses the rc/systemd transition and quite some software has come and gone. It might be much simpler to just re-install the system.

thinkanish · 2022-01-31 10:58:54

Hi ,

the 10 years was about the "First fresh installation" of the Arch I did where I did partitions and all ( I did the transition from rc.d to systemd)
and for that matter I cannot reason why I allocated a separate partition for /var. May be to avoid congestion of pacman cache?

Last update was done some 3 years ago. Is there a way to reinstall it without loosing data in it? using the live USB?
OR should I wipe it entirely and install it?

Thanks.

Last edited by thinkanish (2022-01-31 11:01:12)

seth · 2022-01-31 12:17:20

It was rather common back then to move /var to eg. a reiserfs partition to avoid the journal and seek better performance w/ smaller files.

For three years I'd still attempt a resurrection - make sure to mount everything in place, run "pacman --sysroot /mnt -Syu" (you'll otherwise have troubles to deal w/ zstd and the signature key) and report errors as they show up and unresolvable to yourself.

thinkanish · 2022-01-31 12:34:11

Thanks for your reply.

You told "make sure to mount everything in place". Can you please elaborate what that means?
You have given --sysroot /mnt -Syu. So, I guess, I have to do these steps :
Once inside the live boot

mount /dev/sda7 /mnt
mount /dev/sda8 /mnt/var
mount /dev/sda9 /mnt/home

Then run

pacman --sysroot /mnt -Syu

Is my understanding correct?

seth · 2022-01-31 12:43:51

Don't forget the boot partition.

…
mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot
…

You maybe also want to look around in /var on sda7 and the fstab of that system (maybe you stopped using the var partition earlier)?

thinkanish · 2022-02-01 07:09:14

Hi,
When I try to run the command

pacman --sysroot /mnt -Syu

I am getting such warnings and errors :
one such pair is,

warning: too many errors from mirrors.adnettelcom.ro, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
error: failed to synchronize all databases (invalid url for server)

And about this,

seth wrote:

You maybe also want to look around in /var on sda7 and the fstab of that system (maybe you stopped using the var partition earlier)?

what is the significance of this? anything to do with the update?

Thanks.

thinkanish · 2022-02-01 07:09:21

Hi,
When I try to run the command

pacman --sysroot /mnt -Syu

I am getting such warnings and errors :
one such pair is,

warning: too many errors from mirrors.adnettelcom.ro, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
error: failed to synchronize all databases (invalid url for server)

And about this,

seth wrote:

You maybe also want to look around in /var on sda7 and the fstab of that system (maybe you stopped using the var partition earlier)?

what is the significance of this? anything to do with the update?

Thanks.

Edit : however his command worked :

pacman --root /mnt -Syu

but it says system is up to date and nothing to do.
Still I am not able to boot in to the system.

Last edited by thinkanish (2022-02-01 07:34:38)

seth · 2022-02-01 07:23:01

warning: too many errors from mirrors.adnettelcom.ro, skipping for the remainder of this transaction

How old is the iso you're using?
Configure different mirrors, https://archlinux.org/mirrorlist/ (include the mirror status)

what is the significance of this?

Restoring the old layout and operate on the most recent configuration - it has no direct impact on the update.

thinkanish · 2022-02-01 07:36:17

Hello,
As I mentioned in the post #17 (I edited without seeing your reply),

pacman --root /mnt -Syu

works.
but it says system is up to date and nothing to do.
Still I am not able to boot in to the system.

The ISO is downloaded on 30th Jan 2022

Last edited by thinkanish (2022-02-01 07:36:43)

V1del · 2022-02-01 07:48:50

Reinstall linux,mkinitcpio and maybe pacman and check and make sure the hooks are actually ran (and ensure the path under /mnt actually have all necessary mounts as established earlier)

Also you absolutely should be using --sysroot for a mounted guest system so fix the mirror list on the guest system in /etc/pacman/mirrorlist before running the command

Last edited by V1del (2022-02-01 07:49:26)

seth · 2022-02-01 07:49:13

man pacman wrote:

-r, --root <path>
Specify an alternative installation root (default is /). This should not be used as a way to install software into /usr/local instead of /usr. NOTE: If database path or log file are not specified on either the command
line or in pacman.conf(5), their default location will be inside this root path. NOTE: This option is not suitable for performing operations on a mounted guest system. See --sysroot instead.

mirrors.adnettelcom.ro isn't even in https://archlinux.org/mirrors/status/ and I can't resolve the domain either - is this "archlinux archlinux" or "manjaro archlinux" or some other derivate?

thinkanish · 2022-02-01 08:00:05

V1del wrote:

Reinstall linux,mkinitcpio and maybe pacman and check and make sure the hooks are actually ran (and ensure the path under /mnt actually have all necessary mounts as established earlier)

Thanks I will try this.
How do I make sure the hooks are actually run? Is it a automatic process? Or should I invoke something to make the hooks run?

V1del wrote:

Also you absolutely should be using --sysroot for a mounted guest system so fix the mirror list on the guest system in /etc/pacman/mirrorlist before running the command

Okay. I will fix the mirrorlist and try again with sysroot

seth wrote:

mirrors.adnettelcom.ro isn't even in https://archlinux.org/mirrors/status/ and I can't resolve the domain either - is this "archlinux archlinux" or "manjaro archlinux" or some other derivate?

This was the last mirror in that list. And this is "archlinux archlinux". Downloaded from archlinux.org.

Edit : I found that there is another problem now.
I see that if I even edit the mirror list, it complains as not able to resolve the host.
But I am able to ping to archlinux.org and google.com

Last edited by thinkanish (2022-02-01 08:30:48)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-01-29 17:40:02

Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#2 2022-01-29 18:44:17

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#3 2022-01-29 18:56:06

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#4 2022-01-29 23:14:39

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#5 2022-01-29 23:59:48

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#6 2022-01-30 04:24:26

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#7 2022-01-30 13:58:37

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#8 2022-01-30 17:26:04

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#9 2022-01-30 17:32:25

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#10 2022-01-31 04:17:06

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#11 2022-01-31 07:25:27

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#12 2022-01-31 10:58:54

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#13 2022-01-31 12:17:20

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#14 2022-01-31 12:34:11

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#15 2022-01-31 12:43:51

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#16 2022-02-01 07:09:14

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#17 2022-02-01 07:09:21

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#18 2022-02-01 07:23:01

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#19 2022-02-01 07:36:17

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#20 2022-02-01 07:48:50

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#21 2022-02-01 07:49:13

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

#22 2022-02-01 08:00:05

Re: Cannot boot into arch after a long update.

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