[Bug 571707] Re: fsck progress stalls at boot, plymouthd/mountall eats CPU

[bth73]

I'm using 9x64 with all updates and I've posted question on mint forums
for last 6 month and have 0 replies. Auto fsck has never finished for me
on this install. Seems everyone is working on the newest disaster, ahh,
distribution. The problem with all linux distributions is that no-one
cares about a finished product. They just barely get it to work, then it
is on to the next thing.

PLEASE FINISH ONE THING COMPLETELY BEFORE GOING ON TO THE NEXT. BECAUSE
THE NEXT THING WILL JUST HAVE ANOTHER SET OF BUGS, AND YOU WILL NEVER
HAVE A UN-BUGGED, CLEAN RUNNING PROGRAM.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/571707

Title:
  fsck progress stalls at boot, plymouthd/mountall eats CPU

Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
  Fix Released
Status in “mountall” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “plymouth” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “mountall” source package in Lucid:
  Fix Released
Status in “plymouth” source package in Lucid:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  PROBLEM

  When a disk check is performed, the progress stalls somewhere around
  70% and will then take a very long time finishing the remaining
  percent (10 minutes or more).

  PATCH

  Patch for mountall has now been pushed as an update for Lucid, if you
  are still seeing this problem, make sure you have mountall 2.15
  installed before commenting/reporting a new bug.

  [Earlier patch comments:]
  Tero Mononen has published a patch for Bug #553745 which applies to the issue described here as well (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plymouth/+bug/553745/comments/76 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plymouth/+bug/553745/comments/77 )

  I have created corresponding packages which are available through my
  PPA: https://launchpad.net/~arand/+archive/unstable

  !!!Do note that this is an unofficial, untested, preliminary patch!!!
  However testing and feedback is welcome, please especially report if there are ANY (new) problems seen when using the patched version.

  TEST CASE:

  (sudo aptitude install bootchart)
  sudo touch /forcefsck && sudo reboot

  POSSIBLE TEMPORARY WORKAROUNDS

  1. Removing "quiet" and "splash" from the kernel boot line

  2. When the progress has stalled, switch away from the splash screen
  using the left arrowkey (presumably any arrowkey works).

  * Both these approaches speeds up the boot process to ~1 minute
  instead.

  OBSERVATIONS

  The fsck message "(...) non-contiguous (...)" Which I assume indicates
  the end of the fsck, is printed in the Virtual Terminal ("outside"
  plymouth) at around 70% + ~10-20 seconds.

  Disk activity is null from this point on (presumed end of fsck above).

  Bootchart crashes if trying to catch the whole boot at once with
  plymouth (at least for my 1h boot).

  This problem seems to occur in both plymouthd and mountall, semi-simultaneously:
  If you are in the plymouth screen, plymouthd is the cpu-gobbler, if you switch away from it using the arrow keys, mountall instead takes over the cpu-eating.

  #####

  ORIGINAL REPORT

  Binary package hint: mountall

  On my system when fsck runs at boot plymouth % completion count goes
  up quickly (<10 seconds) up to about 80% and then slows down
  considerably: the complete fsck of my 125GB HD, 30% full takes more
  than 5 minutes.

  While this goes on the text VTs are all completely blank: just a
  blinking cursor.

  An fsck from a recovery disk completes in ~10 seconds so it doesn't
  look like "fsck just being slow".

  This slowdown was *not* happening on 2010-04-14 with the PPA described
  by this comment:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plymouth/+bug/554737/comments/25

  The fix in the PPA is now in the mainline lucid but somewhere in
  between then and today (2010-04-29) something introduced this
  slowdown.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
  Package: mountall 2.14
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
  Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
  NonfreeKernelModules: wl
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Thu Apr 29 15:38:56 2010
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100317.1)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_IE:en_GB:en
   PATH=(custom, user)
   LANG=en_IE.utf8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: mountall

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