[Feisty] Fail to boot (with initramfs-tools_0.85dubuntu5)

I confirm that..

Same problem here.

I then tried that :

boot with break=top then ctrl-d -> failed
boot with break=premount then ctrl-d -> failed
boot with break=mount then ctrl-d -> success

There seems to be a resource conflict problem when initializing my piix ide controller

I will try to post some logs
(how are we supposed to capture initramfs output ?)

In my case only the 2.6.20 kernel doesn't boot.

Kernel 2.6.17 works fine.

The only way to boot intro 2.6.20-2 is to download the Initramfs to 0.69ubuntu26, doing this:

[CODE]wget http://librarian.launchpad.net/5270535/initramfs-tools_0.69ubuntu26_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i initramfs-tools_0.69ubuntu26_all.deb[/CODE]

The problem is :

init-premount/udev initiates modules loading, but when local-top/udev_helper is run the pci-ide module (piix in my case) is not loaded yet and ide-generic is then loaded

removing "modprobe -q ide-generic" in local-top/udev_helper solved the problem for me

maybe something takes longer in recent kernels (I tried 2.6.19-7-generic and 2.6.20-2-generic)

in can confirm this. It happened either when upgrading
from initramfs-tools 0.69ubuntu26 to 0.85dubuntu2
or from initramfs-tools 0.85dubuntu2 to 0.85dubuntu3

both updates were done the same day.

I can also confirm Cedric Schieli's workaround:

 sudo vi /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/udev_helper
comment out modprobe -q ide-generic
then run
sudo update-initramfs -u -k 2.6.20-2-generic
or whichever kernel is not booting anymore
then uncomment modprobe... so you get a vanilla version of /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/udev_helper

I can cofirm the bug and chantra's workaround

I can confirm the bug.

I have initramfs-tools 0.85dubuntu5.

I can't boot with 2.6.20-2, but can with 2.6.19-7. Haven't tried with 2.6.20-1 (all generic).

Regards
Pochu

I get the bug as well; Workaround seems to work.

I do confirm the bug.

Trying workaround...

Waiting for a 6th ubuntu version ;)

Chantra's (or Schieli's) workaround solved the problem in my case.

Noted "fix released" comment above so tried re-installing this a.m., ending at noon EST.
Fix did not work on my AMD64 Acer Ferrari or has perhaps not made its way to the 64-bit repository.

0.85eubuntu1 should fix this now.

I still have this or a closely related issue with the latest initramfs and 2.6.20-5.

If I set break=mount, the initramfs prompt appears well before the HDD are detected.

If I wait until disks are detected and run scripts/local-top/mdadm, the raids are created, but the system hangs waiting for root device (/dev/mapper/vg00-root).

If I set the boot device to /dev/evms/lvm2/vg00/root, and do the "wait for disk detection", scripts/local-top/mdadm (or even just exit the initramfs shell) trick, then the system boots (first time for a month).

There are still timing / probing issues here; the latest initramfs does not fix it.

I still had this bug with latest initramfs-tools (0.85eubuntu5); although it could be that I dragged it with me since herd 2. The workaround did it for me.