fstab fails, but mount -a works

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello, here’s the following. I have been using the partition setup:
sda=openSUSE SSD
sdb=HDD
sdb1=Windows Dedicated
sdb2=Shared Transport
sdc=Windows 7 SSD

Recently I noticed that I am failing to load sdb2 from fstab.

No matter what I do, if I modify the YAST partitioner for mounting option, the partition loads properly, and also using the command line “mount -a” seems to load the partition properly.

I am now trying my best to mount this partition on boot, and nothing is helping, I could use a little help. This has worked for over 3 years, and it decided to not work one day.
-SJL

2

Yast=>Partitioner

Select the partition, edit, choose to NOT FORMAT, choose to mount it and tell it where to mount.

3

Details as following:

systemcontrol:


**●** **home-SJL-Desktop-TRANSPORT.mount                                                              ** loaded **failed     failed   **       /home/SJL/Desktop/TRANSPORT

fdisk

**Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors**
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x9e93f24f

**Device**     **Boot** **     Start** **       End** **   Sectors** ** Size** **Id** **Type**
/dev/sdb1               63 1264582717 1264582655  603G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2       1264582718 3878672684 2614089967  1.2T  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.

blkid

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="Windows_Dedicated" UUID="C448EE2E48EE1EC4" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="9e93f24f-01"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="Shared_Transfer" UUID="FA3ADDB33ADD6CDF" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="9e93f24f-02"

fstab

UUID=FA3ADDB33ADD6CDF /home/SJL/Desktop/TRANSPORT/ ntfs-3g    users,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=137,dmask=027,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 2
4

Hello Fraser_Bell,

the partitioner has been used many times to try to mount and remount and re-set auto-mount on boot. It worked similar to mount -a from command line. The partition is not loaded on reboot.

5

Are there any mount, ntfs or fuse error or warning messages in dmesg or journalctl?

6

I have a similar “fstab” entry for a Windows partition that is working fine here.

But I wonder whether Windows fast boot is involved here?

7

Hi Mr.Mazda,

neither. No error reported, and the Windows 7 and after hard-mount(from terminal) from OpenSUSE, no obvious hardware issue on the HDD either.

8

Any interesting boot messages (dmesg) about this failing to mount?

9

Can you show us your unadulterated working fstab configuration?

cat /etc/fstab
10

Hello deano_ferrari,

unfortunately that would be pointless because I’ve changed the options for the fstab about 1000 times in the past couple of hours.

-SJL

11

Normally if an fstab mount fails, you’d know about it. It won’t be silent. Are these disks all internal? Any USB connected?

12

It would be interesting to see if these fstab mount options might be helpful here…

From ‘man systemd.mount’

x-systemd.device-timeout=
Configure how long systemd should wait for a device to show up before giving up on an entry from /etc/fstab. Specify a time in seconds or explicitly append a unit such as “s”,
“min”, “h”, “ms”.

       Note that this option can only be used in /etc/fstab, and will be ignored when part of the Options= setting in a unit file.

   x-systemd.mount-timeout=
       Configure how long systemd should wait for the mount command to finish before giving up on an entry from /etc/fstab. Specify a time in seconds or explicitly append a unit such
       as "s", "min", "h", "ms".

       Note that this option can only be used in /etc/fstab, and will be ignored when part of the Options= setting in a unit file.
13 
SJL@Chimera:~$ cat /etc/fstab
UUID=4e3816d1-6cd8-479d-bdc0-cd15b3968966 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
UUID=3785a577-0bcd-41c5-9416-e61270e81276 /                    ext4       discard,noatime,acl,user_xattr        0 1
UUID=FA3ADDB33ADD6CDF /home/SJL/Desktop/TRANSPORT/ ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8,x-gvfs-show,users,exec,auto 0 2

Current workaround:
script with

#!/bin/bash
sudo mount UUID=FA3ADDB33ADD6CDF /home/SJL/Desktop/TRANSPORT
#sudo mount -a

and this script is given chmod 777 privilege while logged in as root

SJL@Chimera:~/SUPER_LOCAL$ ls -l blah
-rwxrwxrwx 1 SJL users 88 Jul 20 20:45 **blah**

and as user this script is launched at autostart and everything is loaded properly.

This is an internal HDD. Odd thing is that this has worked very well for over 2 years.

14

I’m not concerned with the workaround, it’s not relevant to understanding the issue with the failed fstab mount via systemd. The ‘auto’ option is by default, so it’s not needed explicitly. It would be useful to try the timeout options I mentioned before, to see whether they can influence a successful mounting here.

This is an internal HDD.

Ok, thanks.

Odd thing is that this has worked very well for over 2 years.

Yes, it is interesting. Was the HDD in use with the SDDs all that time?

15

Hey deano, I will try the timeout in August, I currently need a working system until July 31. I don’t remember my exact steps, but I’ve actually systematically eliminated the time out for the boot sequence somewhere because it used to hang at boot/shutdown.

Historically my laptop has always had:
1 Windows 7 Pro SSD mSATA 120gb ->250gb -> 480gb
1 OpenSUSE SSD 120gb ->240gb ->512gb
1 shared HDD/SSD 500gb SSD(dead after 2 months) -> 500gb HDD -> 1TB HDD -> 2TB HDD

At each iteration of upgrade, the system was tested thoroughly. The latest upgrade was in June, and everything worked perfectly fine until the latest Windows 7 Update Yesterday.

I am switching jobs in September and I will be overhauling to LEAP 15 and W10