[Bug 2064208] Re: Installer crashes when booting from USB on Raspberry Pi

[Dave Jones]

I now have a test image that, using the patch from LP: #2037015, appears
to fix the installer issue when booting from USB. If volunteers are
interested in testing the image, I've made it available at:

  https://zoidberg.waveform.org.uk/images/ubuntu-24.04-preinstalled-
desktop-arm64+raspi.img.xz

The SHA256 of the image, for verification purposes, is
b2718d9005a5ea6486b8512b6cf3974ce48ef879d1232a6dc88b2ccaa1dc3390

I've tested booting from two SD cards on both models and both appear
fine; I've also tested USB boot on the Pi 4 (which worked happily) and
tomorrow I should be able to test NVMe on a Pi 5. However, given the
variability displayed by this bug already, the wider the variety of
hardware tested, the better.

Naturally, no workarounds should be in place when testing (leave the
config.txt "as is"). If things work, please report the model and memory
size of your Pi (e.g. Pi 4 4GB) and what you're booting from (SD card,
SSD, NVMe). make+model of the boot media would be useful too, but
largely to judge if we're covering a reasonable range of hardware.

If things don't work, please report the above information, plus where in
the procedure the crash occurred. If possible, re-flash and try to
confirm if the crash occurs in the same place each time (we've already
seen cases in this bug where "sometimes it does and sometimes it
doesn't").

** Description changed:

  After writing the Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop for Raspberry Pi image to an SSD
  drive with a USB3 interface (specifically; this issue does not occur
  when booting from an SD card), booting the drive on a Pi 4 or Pi 5, and
  running through the installer to the point where the (corrupted) slide
  deck starts to display during setup, the installer crashes.
  
  [ Workaround ]
+ 
+ A test image is now available; please see comment 1 below for details.
  
  At the time of writing, some workarounds have been found, but none that
  consistently work on all boards with all drives. One workaround that has
  worked on a Pi with a Samsung EVO SSD, and a Crucial SSD is as follows:
  
  Before booting the image, find config.txt on the boot partition, and the
  "dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d" line within it. There will be two of these
  lines, you want the first one under an "[all]" section. Append
  ",cma-128" to the line. Specifically, the following section:
  
    dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
    disable_fw_kms_setup=1
  
  Should become:
  
    dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,cma-128
    disable_fw_kms_setup=1
  
  Unmount the drive cleanly, boot it, and run through the installer. You
  may revert the change (if you wish) after successful installation.
  
  Another workaround, reported as working on a Pi 5 with an NVMe drive
  attached over PCIe:
  
  Before booting the image, find config.txt on the boot partition. Under
  the first "[all]" section append the following line:
  
-   dtparam=pciex1
+   dtparam=pciex1
  
  Unmount the drive cleanly, boot it, and run through the installer.
  
  Please note both workarounds have also been reported as failing with
  certain drive combinations.
  
  [ Background ]
  
  Given this crash occurs immediately upon the (corrupted) slide deck
  starting, that it only occurs when booting from USB (but the exact same
  image works from an SD card), and that merely changing the pre-
  allocation of the contiguous memory area affects it, I suspect this at
  least related to (if not a duplicate of) LP: #2037015, particularly
  since a crash bug is now associated with it too, LP: #2062146.
  
  Still, I'll leave this open as a non-duplicate for now as I'm not
  positive of root-cause yet.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2064208

Title:
  Installer crashes when booting from USB on Raspberry Pi

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  After writing the Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop for Raspberry Pi image to an
  SSD drive with a USB3 interface (specifically; this issue does not
  occur when booting from an SD card), booting the drive on a Pi 4 or Pi
  5, and running through the installer to the point where the
  (corrupted) slide deck starts to display during setup, the installer
  crashes.

  [ Workaround ]

  A test image is now available; please see comment 1 below for details.

  At the time of writing, some workarounds have been found, but none
  that consistently work on all boards with all drives. One workaround
  that has worked on a Pi with a Samsung EVO SSD, and a Crucial SSD is
  as follows:

  Before booting the image, find config.txt on the boot partition, and
  the "dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d" line within it. There will be two of these
  lines, you want the first one under an "[all]" section. Append
  ",cma-128" to the line. Specifically, the following section:

    dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
    disable_fw_kms_setup=1

  Should become:

    dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,cma-128
    disable_fw_kms_setup=1

  Unmount the drive cleanly, boot it, and run through the installer. You
  may revert the change (if you wish) after successful installation.

  Another workaround, reported as working on a Pi 5 with an NVMe drive
  attached over PCIe:

  Before booting the image, find config.txt on the boot partition. Under
  the first "[all]" section append the following line:

    dtparam=pciex1

  Unmount the drive cleanly, boot it, and run through the installer.

  Please note both workarounds have also been reported as failing with
  certain drive combinations.

  [ Background ]

  Given this crash occurs immediately upon the (corrupted) slide deck
  starting, that it only occurs when booting from USB (but the exact
  same image works from an SD card), and that merely changing the pre-
  allocation of the contiguous memory area affects it, I suspect this at
  least related to (if not a duplicate of) LP: #2037015, particularly
  since a crash bug is now associated with it too, LP: #2062146.

  Still, I'll leave this open as a non-duplicate for now as I'm not
  positive of root-cause yet.

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