Arch Linux

ElectricSteve

Member

Registered: 2025-11-19

Posts: 3

[SOLVED] Signing EFI binaries post-transaction hook failes.

I've actually had this for a long time, but whenever I do

pacman -Syu

I get the following error at the end:

(25/25) Signing EFI binaries...
Generating EFI bundles....
failed signing /boot/initramfs-linux.img: failed reading PE file: unrecognized PE machine: 0x3730
File has already been signed /boot/vmlinuz-linux
File has already been signed /boot/EFI/Arch Linux/grubx64.efi
failed signing /boot/initramfs-linux: /boot/initramfs-linux does not exist
failed signing /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img does not exist
error: command failed to execute correctly

It may only be when `linux` is also updated, but I haven't tested enough for that.
Anyone know why the command fails and how to fix it?

Last edited by ElectricSteve (Yesterday 17:49:45)

astralc

Member

Registered: 2022-09-17

Posts: 124

Re: [SOLVED] Signing EFI binaries post-transaction hook failes.

you can't sign the initramfs file (at least not with sbctl), you need to use "sbctl remove-file" to remove it from the sign list.

ElectricSteve

Member

Registered: 2025-11-19

Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Signing EFI binaries post-transaction hook failes.

So with `sudo sbctl list-files` which outputs this:

/boot/initramfs-linux: open /boot/initramfs-linux: no such file or directory

/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img: open /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img: no such file or directory

/boot/initramfs-linux.img: failed reading PE file: unrecognized PE machine: 0x3730

/boot/vmlinuz-linux
Signed:		✓ Signed

/boot/EFI/Arch Linux/grubx64.efi
Signed:		✓ Signed

I should remove `initramfs-linux`, `initramfs-linux-fallback.img` and `initramfs-linux.img`?

astralc

Member

Registered: 2022-09-17

Posts: 124

Re: [SOLVED] Signing EFI binaries post-transaction hook failes.

I should remove `initramfs-linux`, `initramfs-linux-fallback.img` and `initramfs-linux.img`?

yes

ElectricSteve

Member

Registered: 2025-11-19

Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Signing EFI binaries post-transaction hook failes.

How do I mark as answered?

tekstryder

Member

Registered: 2013-02-14

Posts: 502

Re: [SOLVED] Signing EFI binaries post-transaction hook failes.

Edit your first post and prepend [SOLVED] to the thread title.