More 16.0 woes. Since using the migration tool led to a failed upgrade I did a clean install of openSUSE 16.0. The machine booted (it dual boots with Ubuntu and I see openSUSE put itself first on the list of boot options) and I was able to set up a couple of accounts and see that basic software such as Firefox was working; the rest of the environment was to be added another day. The home directories for those accounts are on a separate disk and are shared with Ubuntu.
On a subsequent boot into openSUSE the boot sequence halted on Relabel-ing /home and the machine dropped into emergency mode.
[ OK ] Mounted /home
Starting Relabel /home...
[FAILED] Failed to start Relabel /home.
Examining the journal showed that the problem was that SELinux couldn’t deal with an old and long unused ~/Dropbox folder which, if I remember correctly, was the mount point for Dropbox.
░░ The job identifier is 233.
May 12 15:30:51 localhost systemd[1]: Starting Relabel /home...
░░ Subject: A start job for unit home-relabel.service has begun execution
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░
░░ A start job for unit home-relabel.service has begun execution.
░░
░░ The job identifier is 232.
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic- SD/MMC 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: scsi 6:0:0:1: Direct-Access Generic- Compact Flash 1.01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: scsi 6:0:0:2: Direct-Access Generic- SM/xD-Picture 1.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: scsi 6:0:0:3: Direct-Access Generic- MS/MS-Pro 1.03 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:2: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Media removed, stopped polling
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:3: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:1: [sdd] Media removed, stopped polling
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:1: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:2: [sde] Media removed, stopped polling
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:2: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:3: [sdf] Media removed, stopped polling
May 12 15:30:52 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:3: [sdf] Attached SCSI removable disk
May 12 15:32:22 localhost restorecon[1418]: /sbin/restorecon: Could not set context for /home/username/Dropbox: Operation not permitted
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: home-relabel.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
░░ Subject: Unit process exited
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
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░░ An ExecStart= process belonging to unit home-relabel.service has exited.
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░░ The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 255.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: home-relabel.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░
░░ The unit home-relabel.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: Failed to start Relabel /home.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit home-relabel.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
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░░ A start job for unit home-relabel.service has finished with a failure.
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░░ The job identifier is 232 and the job result is failed.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit local-fs.target has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
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░░ A start job for unit local-fs.target has finished with a failure.
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░░ The job identifier is 219 and the job result is dependency.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Early Kernel Boot Messages.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit klog.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░
░░ A start job for unit klog.service has finished with a failure.
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░░ The job identifier is 284 and the job result is dependency.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: klog.service: Job klog.service/start failed with result 'dependency'.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: local-fs.target: Job local-fs.target/start failed with result 'dependency'.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: local-fs.target: Triggering OnFailure= dependencies.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Mark autorelabel as done.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit mark-autorelabel-done.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░
░░ A start job for unit mark-autorelabel-done.service has finished with a failure.
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░░ The job identifier is 221 and the job result is dependency.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: mark-autorelabel-done.service: Job mark-autorelabel-done.service/start failed with result 'dependency'.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: home-relabel.service: Consumed 2min 43.543s CPU time.
░░ Subject: Resources consumed by unit runtime
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
Dropbox is no longer installed on this machine, let alone running, so nothing is mounted at ~/Dropbox now.
A similar story for systemctl status home-relabel.service
× home-relabel.service - Relabel /home
Loaded: loaded (/run/systemd/generator/home-relabel.service; generated)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2026-05-12 15:34:26 BST; 9min ago
Invocation: 34db8ab99b884435ba8db9c84c33c494
Process: 1418 ExecStart=/sbin/restorecon -R -T 0 /home (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
Main PID: 1418 (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
CPU: 2min 43.543s
May 12 15:30:51 localhost systemd[1]: Starting Relabel /home...
May 12 15:32:22 localhost restorecon[1418]: /sbin/restorecon: Could not set context for /home/username/Dropbox: Operation not permitted
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: home-relabel.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: home-relabel.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: Failed to start Relabel /home.
May 12 15:34:26 localhost systemd[1]: home-relabel.service: Consumed 2min 43.543s CPU time.
The obvious thing to do would be to delete that folder as it hasn’t been needed since I dropped Dropbox in 2018. (I cleared Dropbox but at the time neglected to delete the ~/Dropbox and ~/.dropbox folders.) But when, as root in emergency mode, I tried to remove the folder it produced an error message that root didn’t have permission to delete it:
rmdir: failed to remove 'Dropbox': Operation not permitted
Similarly rm -R gives
rm: cannot remove 'Dropbox': Operation not permitted
lsattr and lsof produce no output. getfacl ~/Dropbox returns what you would expect:
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x
I rebooted into Ubuntu and logged in as the owner account but again couldn’t delete the folder. In fact I see that the owner of the folder is not that account but the other one (both accounts belong to the users group). Odd; even so root should have the privileges to delete it anyway but I couldn’t get root to do the deletion in Ubuntu either. As a last resort I logged into the account that seemed to own that Dropbox folder but not surprisingly I couldn’t delete the folder from there either.
rmdir: failed to remove '/home/cathalex/Dropbox': Permission denied
This folder didn’t cause issues for all the releases of openSUSE from 2018 up to and including release 15.6, perhaps because I wasn’t using SELinux. Nor does the folder cause Ubuntu any problem (beyond not being able to delete it). SELinux’s Relabel is just doing its job, but if it prevents release 16.0 from booting then obviously openSUSE is unusable.
I have searched the web for solutions but found none. Any suggestions on how to further investigate (and maybe even solve) these issues with deletion and booting would be gratefully received.