Persistent Storage option always greyed out

Bug #557775 reported by Phillip Susi
104
This bug affects 24 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
usb-creator (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Medium
Roderick B. Greening

Bug Description

Binary package hint: usb-creator

Whenever I run usb-creator under lucid to create a liveusb, even after cleanly formatting the 4gb usb stick, the options for persistent storage are grayed out.

Revision history for this message
Roderick B. Greening (roderick-greening) wrote :

Can you confirm whether this happens after selecting the ISO in the top portion and selecting the usb partition in the second section? The bottom (storage options) are intentionally greyed out until you have selected both items from the above fields.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
assignee: nobody → Roderick B. Greening (roderick-greening)
Revision history for this message
Thomas Novin (thomasn80) wrote :

I confirm this bug.

1. Open Startup Disk Creator

2. Choose ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso which was found automatically.

3. Try choosing both /dev/sdb and /dev/sdb1. All options for persistent storage are greyed out.

4. Erase Disk. Wait until complete, then repeat. Same behaviour.

I read somewhere that 'gparted' was required for this to work. Installed it but no change.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Thomas Novin (thomasn80) wrote :

This bug might be related:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/457737

The workaround there in comment #10 didn't work for me though.

Revision history for this message
Thomas Novin (thomasn80) wrote :

I came up with a workaround:

Copy your ISO image to /tmp or somewhere else not automatically destected by usb-creator.

Choose 'Other' and select that ISO

Select that image from the listing

Now it's not greyed out anymore and you can also go back to select your original image and it will be good.

Voilá!

Revision history for this message
Tars (tars-ac) wrote :

#4 workaround confirmed. Thanks ThomasNovin.

Revision history for this message
Yfrwlf (yfrwlf) wrote :

So when you add isos, it actually checks them and ungrays everything and works, but if it sees an iso automatically, even though the iso is highlighted, it isn't actually yet checked/validated/selected by the program and thus leaves the options grayed out. That would be my guess any way.

It's confusing though because hitting the make startup disk button is still possible, and it tries to create it, but does so much faster than it should, and creates a bad install. This is probably due to it copying the boot files there but failing when it tries to copy the ISO, even when it says the disk was successfully created. Even when you have no ISO selected at all, the make startup disk button is not grayed out, but that's a different bug. Still, both things make this program confusing to use. :P

Revision history for this message
arkmundi (rkerver) wrote :

I'm confirming that usb-creator is unusable for me. I'm running the latest version 10.04. Even tried reinsalling usb-creator, to no avail. I need persistence. Otherwise there's no point - can just use a LiveCD burned from the iso. What I'm aiming for is for my Seagate Freeagent USB drive to have a bootable Ubuntu, along with my partimage system backup, along with my grsync incremental. That way I can come close to the state of my system in the event of system failure. Would be great if those responsible fixed this utility, as its the one we need. Thanks.

Revision history for this message
Brian Buchanan (brianbuchanan) wrote :

Running 10.04 here and was unable to get the persistence options to become available until I moved the .iso out of my Downloads directory (As metioned in #4), and clicked the "Other" button and selected the iso. Also found this thread discussing this issue. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1470486

Revision history for this message
Roderick B. Greening (roderick-greening) wrote : Re: [Bug 557775] Re: Persistent Storage option always greyed out

> Running 10.04 here and was unable to get the persistence options to
> become available until I moved the .iso out of my Downloads directory
> (As metioned in #4), and clicked the "Other" button and selected the
> iso. Also found this thread discussing this issue.
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1470486

Usb creator kde does not autoscan the ~/Downloads directory, which the gtk
front end did.

So, moving the file is not actually fixing the issue. The issue appears rather
to be in using the commandline option to add the iso. Please retest again with
the file in the original ~/Downloads directory but do not use the --iso option.
I am certain that works as expected.

Not sure why the --iso option is not working. Could be something messed up due
to OEM add-ons. I'll have to review. It was working... when I originally coded
it.

_______________________________________
Roderick B. Greening, B.Sc.
Paradise, NL Canada
E-mail/MSN: <email address hidden>
LP: launchpad.net/~roderick-greening
Wiki: wiki.ubuntu.com/rgreening
Blog: roderick-greening.blogspot.com
Twitter: twitter.com/rgreening
Identica: identi.ca/rgreening

Revision history for this message
Roderick B. Greening (roderick-greening) wrote :

> Running 10.04 here and was unable to get the persistence options to
> become available until I moved the .iso out of my Downloads directory
> (As metioned in #4), and clicked the "Other" button and selected the
> iso. Also found this thread discussing this issue.
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1470486

Here is the new bug and the fix is included in the bug report and I have
committed upstream. LP: #608741

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/608741

I'll try and get a release SRU'd for lucid as soon as I have some time.

Cheers,

Rod.
_______________________________________
Roderick B. Greening, B.Sc.
Paradise, NL Canada
E-mail/MSN: <email address hidden>
LP: launchpad.net/~roderick-greening
Wiki: wiki.ubuntu.com/rgreening
Blog: roderick-greening.blogspot.com
Twitter: twitter.com/rgreening
Identica: identi.ca/rgreening

Revision history for this message
Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab) wrote :

@Thomas, thank you - #4 workaround does it for me too. I've marked this Medium importance:

    * A bug that has a moderate impact on a core application (usb-creator-gtk)

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
importance: Low → Medium
Revision history for this message
David Gamino (dfreemind) wrote :

This workaround worked for me too. Many thanks.

Copy your ISO image to /tmp or somewhere else not automatically destected by usb-creator.

Choose 'Other' and select that ISO

Select that image from the listing

Now it's not greyed out anymore and you can also go back to select your original image and it will be good.

Revision history for this message
sb (sbhalla) wrote :

Yes the workaround works. Thanks. The ISO has to be kept in a folder away from Downloads to create a persistent USB.

Revision history for this message
ExCrusader (excrusader) wrote :

This workaround does not work for me in Ubuntu 11.04. I copied the .iso to my home folder, to my desktop, and to /tmp but the options are still fully greyed out. Is there any other further information on this bug or other workarounds?

Revision history for this message
Dee Waters (deewat7) wrote :

I ran into this bug trying to make a Ubuntu 10.04 USB stick from the 10.04 iso on a running 10.04 system. My workaround was to run the program as superuser (gksu usb-creator-gtk). The iso was not moved from the download directory (was autodetected), and I didn't have to do anything to /sdb. I did waste a lot of time, though.

As it seems that the bug is still there, and the workaround doesn't work in 11.04, perhaps the general instructions here ( http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download ) need to be changed.

Revision history for this message
glotz (glotz) wrote :

Still not working. usb-creator-gtk 0.2.28.3+5.0

Revision history for this message
xxbeanxx (greg-baker-bsc) wrote :

I ran into this issue tonight, and figure out it was because my USB stick didn't have enough free space.
I added the line:
        MIN_PERSISTENCE = 128
to the update_target(self, udi) function in /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/usbcreator/frontends/gtk/frontend.py to force the option to enable itself.

Revision history for this message
Jari Laamanen (yartsa) wrote :

Thanks xxbeanxx, that helped me to get the persistent slider available in usb-creator-kde.

Revision history for this message
Jari Laamanen (yartsa) wrote :

Afterall, the trick of Comment #17 was not usable. The created live installation filled the /cur filesystem (root) completely when booted, so no memory was available. I had to compy with non-persistent liveCD.

Revision history for this message
Andy (theonlyandy) wrote :

Still an issue on Ubuntu 12.04, usb-creator-gt 0.2.56.2.

Is it a feature in some way?

Revision history for this message
ironstorm (ironstorm-gmail) wrote :

6 years later... the fix for this is solid, the menu for persistent storage options is simply no longer visible at all (instead of being greyed out). :\

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