[Bug 1835660] Re: initramfs unpacking failed

[Saroumane]

I think "file" is wrong. (I have the same kind of misleading output :
"ASCII cpio archive ..." )

You can try to you use "unmkinitramfs" on your inird.img (unfortunately "cpio" does not work to fully "unarchive" this kind of "multi-segments" archive) and check the size.
I have "lz4" initrd.img files around 80MB. If I uncompress/unarchive them with "unmkinitramfs", I get around 260MB of files and folders.
If I remake initrd with COMPRESS=gzip in /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf  I get initrd files a bit smaller (around 74 MB)

So I think update-initramfs (and the invoked script mkinitramfs) are doing their job.
The "initramfs unpacking failed: Decoding failed" error might just be a cosmetic error from grub or kernel.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1835660

Title:
  initramfs unpacking failed

Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid
Status in linux package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  "initramfs unpacking failed: Decoding failed",  message appears on
  boot up.

  If I "update-initramfs" using gzip instead of lz, then boot up passes
  without decoding failed message.

  ---

  However, we currently believe that the decoding error reported in
  dmesg is actually harmless and has no impact on usability on the
  system.

  Switching from lz4 to gzip compression, simply papers over the
  warning, without any benefits, and slows down boot.

  Kernel should be fixed to correctly parse lz4 compressed initrds, or
  at least lower the warning, to not be user visible as an error.

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