[Bug 1981622] [NEW] mtd device must be supplied (device name is empty)

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

You have been subscribed to a public bug by Matthieu Clemenceau (mclemenceau):

[WORKAROUND]

This will NOT fix a system that is not booting, because the "mtd device
must be supplied (device name is empty)" message is not the cause of
failed boots. This work around is only for those who are annoyed by the
error message, but are otherwise not experiencing any issues.

If you are not able to boot your system, but you see this error message,
please open a separate bug with your journalctl and dmesg logs.

# cp /{lib,etc}/systemd/system/systemd-pstore.service
# sed -i 's/modprobe at mtdpstore.service //' /etc/systemd/system/systemd-pstore.service
# systemctl daemon-reload

[Impact]

Due to mtdpstore not being properly configured as a pstore backend, when
systemd-pstore.service tries to load the module, users get the following
error in dmesg:

[   18.453473] systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Module mtdpstore...
[   18.462685] mtd device must be supplied (device name is empty)

This is a distracting error for users trying to diagnose other system
issues, especially if their system does not boot after a kernel crash
and this is the only message displayed on the console.

[Test Plan]

* Force a kernel crash to populate /sys/fs/pstore, thus causing systemd-
pstore.service to start on the subsequent boot:

# echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/panic
# echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

* When the system reboots, observe the error in dmesg:

# dmesg | grep mtd

[Where problems could occur]

If a system was relying on this pstore backend, and mtdpstore is built
as a module, it is possible for systemd-pstore.service to trigger before
mtdpstore is loaded, causing systemd-pstore to not copy the contents of
/sys/fs/pstore. Note however that before the patched introduced as a
result of bug 1978079, systemd-pstore.service would not attempt to load
*any* kernel modules.

[Original Description]

After updating my 22.04 system (possibly caused by Systemd update). And
now booting, dmesg has two errors:

'mtd device must be supplied (device name is empty)'.

See line 8 and 134 in the included logfile.

The system are booting as it should though, and the system are working
like it should no errors at all.

Is this maybe caused by 'efi-pstore-not-cleared-on-boot.patch' in
systemd?

I have an EFI mounted at boot but it isn't used because I have installed
my system in legacy BIOS mode.

Is this maybe the culprit?

I could ignore the message but it isn't nice though.

Regards

** Affects: systemd (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Medium
         Status: Fix Released

** Affects: systemd (Ubuntu Focal)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Triaged

** Affects: systemd (Ubuntu Jammy)
     Importance: Medium
         Status: Fix Committed


** Tags: foundations-todo fr-2566 verification-done verification-done-jammy
-- 
mtd device must be supplied (device name is empty)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1981622
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to the bug report.