[Bug 711799] Re: e2fsprogs wrongly identifies ext4 as mounted

[Theodore Ts'o]

@willdeans: thanks for the strace.  It was very useful indeed.  Can you
try e2fsprogs 1.42.6 and see if the problem still occurs with that
version?   The fact that you are seeing the "fallback back to backup
descriptors", "nope, that didn't work", etc., twice was something that
was fixed in 1.42.2, and 1.42.6 is the latest released version, and it's
after the second "nope that didn't work, going back to the original
supberblock" that you're getting the EBUSY error.  So the newest version
of e2fsck should hopefully fix this for you.

Note to others.  willdeans problem may be different from others.  If you
are using some other version of e2fsprogs, ***please*** open a new bug
and don't just glom onto this bug.  It's one of the things that I loathe
about Launchpad (or at least how most Ubuntu users tend to use
Launchpad).  People mix up bugs with superficially similar symptoms, and
make it very hard to impossible to disentangle bugs that really should
have been kept separate.   Thanks!!!

It's always better to open a new bug, and if it turns out to be the same
as another bug, we can always declare it a duplicate later, after we are
100% sure it is a duplicate.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/711799

Title:
  e2fsprogs wrongly identifies ext4 as mounted

Status in “e2fsprogs” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: e2fsprogs

  After a crash of Ubuntu netbook, the machine hang with initramfs (I
  have a /boot and /).
  Booting with the same system (ubuntu 10.10) from thumb drive, I cannot fsck it:
  $ sudo fsck /dev/sda2
  fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
  e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
  fsck.ext4: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sda2
  Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program?

  But it is not mounted:
  $ cat /proc/mounts
  shows that it is not mounted; and it can't be unmounted.

  dmesg knows what is going on:
  $ dmesg | grep sda2
  [    6.513953]  sda: sda1  [01;31m [Ksda2 [m [K sda3 < sda5 > sda4
  [    9.300388] EXT4-fs ( [01;31m [Ksda2 [m [K): INFO: recovery
  required on readonly filesystem
  [    9.300398] EXT4-fs ( [01;31m [Ksda2 [m [K): write access will be
  enabled during recovery
  [    9.312706] EXT4-fs warning (device  [01;31m [Ksda2 [m [K):
  ext4_clear_journal_err: Filesystem error recorded from previous mount:
  IO failure
  [    9.312729] EXT4-fs warning (device  [01;31m [Ksda2 [m [K):
  ext4_clear_journal_err: Marking fs in need of filesystem check.
  $
  But this fsck does never materialise, and can't be done manually.

  Finally, I tried to delete the journal, but to no avail, the "Device
  or resource busy" stays. Is there any way to trick fsck into believing
  me that it is not mounted?
  If not, I still consider the behaviour somewhat wrong: if not in
  /proc/mount, why does fsck say so?
  And when I
  sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
  it starts the mount process, but never finishes, and also it is
  impossible to ever exit this process, I tried with Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Z, and
  even with kill -9 from another console. Ubuntu isn't even able to shut
  down then, but keeps trying forever.

  In a nutshell, it is a bug in 10.10. I use the installer-CD written to the thumb drive (Startup Disk creator).
   Confirmed: Because when I boot with a 9.04 thumb drive, I can easily open a terminal and run fsck. Done and over.

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