System Update froze - UbuntuMATE 16-04

[Bret Busby]

On 20/06/2018, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/06/2018, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 20/06/2018, Sarunas Burdulis <sarunas at math.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>>> On 2018-06-19 15:04, Bret Busby wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> Now, I do not know how many hours this
>>>>
>>>> update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-127-generic
>>>>
>>>> step is supposed to take, but I think something is wrong there.
>>>
>>> It may take a while, depending on a system. I have seen it take up to 20
>>> min. on some very low RAM cloud instances (even then there are
>>> informative messages given), but you seem to have plenty of RAM.
>>>
>>> I don't know what's the root of the problem in your case. You may have
>>> to investigate, whether the process is actually doing something (disk
>>> activity, resource usage), attache to it via strace -p <processID>, etc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sarunas Burdulis
>>> Systems Administrator, Dartmouth Mathematics
>>> math.dartmouth.edu/~sarunas
>>>
>>>
>>
>> It has now been running (or, frozen) for more than an hour.
>>
>> Running strace -p <pid> returns
>> "wait4(1, "
>>
>>
>
> "
> root at bret-Inspiron-580-UbuntuMATE:/home/bret# ps -ax | grep initramfs
>  2692 pts/1    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto initramfs
> 29029 pts/7    Ss+    0:00 /usr/bin/dpkg --status-fd 57 --configure
> initramfs-tools:all
> 29034 pts/7    S+     0:00 /bin/sh
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/initramfs-tools.postinst triggered update-initramfs
> 29035 pts/7    S+     0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/update-initramfs -u
> root at bret-Inspiron-580-UbuntuMATE:/home/bret# strace -p 29034
> strace: Process 29034 attached
> wait4(-1,
> "
>
> "
> root at bret-Inspiron-580-UbuntuMATE:/home/bret# ps -ax | grep initramfs
>  2692 pts/1    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto initramfs
> 29029 pts/7    Ss+    0:00 /usr/bin/dpkg --status-fd 57 --configure
> initramfs-tools:all
> 29034 pts/7    S+     0:00 /bin/sh
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/initramfs-tools.postinst triggered update-initramfs
> 29035 pts/7    S+     0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/update-initramfs -u
> root at bret-Inspiron-580-UbuntuMATE:/home/bret# strace -p 29034
> strace: Process 29034 attached
> wait4(-1, ^Cstrace: Process 29034 detached
>  <detached ...>
> root at bret-Inspiron-580-UbuntuMATE:/home/bret# strace -p 29035
> strace: Process 29035 attached
> wait4(-1,
> "
>

And, after 3 hours, no change.

It is unfortunate.

I was going to update both my running 16.04 systems, for the Ubuntu
base security updates, but it seems too risky.

-- 

Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia

..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

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