ureadahead update - can't login

[candlerb]

after sreadahead was updated with ureadahead in karmic, I can't get to login anymore,
the system boots, but I can't get to kdm

I had a similar problem with Xubuntu [Thinkpad X30 laptop, 1GB RAM, i915.modeset=0]

When rebooting after the ureadahead update on Dec 4th, I couldn't login. I hadn't rebooted since Nov 29th, at which time it was fine.

The symptom: it would get as far as the gdm login screen, but when I entered my username/password after a few seconds it would return to the gdm screen.

After a lot of digging, the actual problem turned out to be as follows: for some reason, one of my partitions in /etc/fstab was not being mounted. It was actually my /u partition, on which my home directories are stored (e.g. /u/home/brian, and /home symlinks to /u/home).

The hint was in /var/log/daemon.log:

Dec 4 21:48:33 ubuntu gdm-session-worker[2292]: WARNING: unable to log session
Dec 4 21:48:33 ubuntu gdm-session-worker[2292]: WARNING: could not save session and language settings: Failed to create file '/home/brian/.dmrc.F7923U': No such file or directory

So if I did ctrl-alt-F1, logged in as root and "mount /u" or "mount -a", all was fine thereafter.

Subsequent boots had the same problem, and I couldn't see anything wrong with /etc/fstab. Eventually I swapped around two lines in /etc/fstab and it all worked just fine after that - which is not really a satisfactory conclusion.

According to the manpage, mountall just reads /etc/fstab. Is it possible that it actually reads some file which is only regenerated when /etc/fstab is touched? Could ureadahead interact with mountall in some way?

I doubt that others in this thread are experiencing the same problem, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Maybe some other update between Nov 29 and Dec 4 was the culprit.

[kolAflash]

Ok, found out something new!

Looks like x11-common version 1:7.4+3ubuntu10 and gdm try to detect if the normal xsession fails. And if, they try to start a failsave session.

So that happends, when starting kdm.

Solution: Uninstall gdm OR downgrade x11-common to 1:7.4+3ubuntu7 AND LOCK x11-common in the package management, so it won't upgrade again.

This is where I found it: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8449299

I also opened a bug-report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rg/+bug/493517

[scotty64]

Ok, found out something new!
... Solution: Uninstall gdm ...

that was the perfect solution. Thank you very much!

[kolAflash]

Problem has been solved by gdm version 2.28.1-0ubuntu2.1

Just get it by the ubuntu update!

After this, you can also update x11-common to the newest version again.

[lunix-]

Having same problem on a ubuntu 10.04 server without gdm or kdm..

This is the last thing I did before restarting:

fdisk  (I partitioned four disks for a new raid5 array)
mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l5 -n4 /dev/sd[bcde]1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/md0
echo "/dev/md0 /server/share ext4 defaults 0 1" >> /etc/fstab

After restart I got this message:

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
/dev/sda1: clean, 49801/366480 files, 287888/1464576 blocks
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
/dev/md0: clean 12/45776896 files, 3131732/183104967 blocks
init: ureadahead-other main process (755) terminated with status 4
[blinking cursor]

And server does not want to start..

[pbenerjee]

I am facing the same problem. However, I am trying to move wubi install of 10.04 to a partition. I installed using lvpm and I get stuck at fsck check and it eternally hangs, I waited 20 mins before pressing Esc key. It jumps to the default Ubuntu dotted progress status window (Xsplash?) and just hangs. If I press Esc key again. it goes back to fsck window again !! The only way to come out was power off

[lunix-]

What fixed it for me was rewriting the fstab file. And things started working great Looks like fstab is very picky about spelling errors...

[lunix-]

Things worked well after I rewrote fstab, for a while but...
Now I've got the same problem as pbenerjee.. server want to boot in tty7 for some strange reason and I get this message and nothing more happens..

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2 /dev/sda1: clean 765765/87658765 files, 765765/7657658765 blocks
[numbers are random...]

Looks like fsck hangs..

when I press esc I get the ubuntu startup screen in ascii on purple background as pbenerjee explained above.

I believe this is not a ureadahead problem, but I really need to find out why fsck stops up like this and make booting from ttyX impossible. I dont want to use ssh always as it should be possible to log on locally... Hope somebody with the same problem finds out why... Ill post updated is I find out anything.

(By the way.. System is actually running and server work geat.. sambashares ++ are up working and logging on from ssh works fine too...)

[lunix-]

OK, I found a solution to my specific problem at least (at last..)
I reinstalled everything from scratch for the n'th time, but this time installing debian lenny instead (using same configuration), that fixed it. Now things work as I want.

I guess I would be able to fix it on ubuntu reading a few more logs and stuff, but I was too lazy sorry..