Zypper patch breaks system

I am attempting to migrate from 13.2 to 42.1 using an offline iso. First I tried to do an update but that failed when grub got lost/corrupted and I never could get it reinstalled even following https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/478290-Article-Re-install-Grub2-from-DVD-Rescue/page5. I abandoned the upgrade for an Installation using the 13.2 environment, sda for Windows, sdb for Linix with a boot partition and LVM’S, sdc for an external drive and sdd for another external drive. I told the installer to use the current partitions, import the mount points and it recreated to /boot and root partitions. The install ran without a problem and the reboot brought up the 42.1 system. I then wanted to get the s/w current so I ran zypper patch which found 1045 items to update. When it was done, I rebooted, grub loaded, after a while I got dumped to emergency mode, the journalctl -xb showed the loader terminated because it timed out waiting for one of the external hard drives. I’ve tried reinstalling and running the patches/updates from the popup (PackageKit?) but get the same result. The unpatched system doesn’t have a problem with that drive. Where should I start the debug?

How is the drive being mounted?

Or, more specifically, what’s the entry in “/etc/fstab”?

I ask this, because I seem to recall a change that affected device-id. I installed from a USB, and the install USB was listed as a repo with a name that included “/dev/disk/by-id/something”.

After some update, the USB stopped be recognized under that ID. I had to change to an alternate device-id.

I don’t know if that is your problem. If the fstab entry used UUID, then you should not have this problem. But if it uses “by-id” then you might run into it.

Here’s the fstab:

/dev/system/swap swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/system/root / ext4 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD1502FAEX-007BA0_WD-WMAY01360710-part1 /boot ext4 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/system/home /home ext4 defaults 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_STM3320620AS_…_9QF2K6FX-part1 /media/external ext4 defaults 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD800JD-55MUA1_WD-WMAMD8507873-part1 /media/winbackup ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/system/virtuals /virtuals ext4 defaults 1 2

The boot complains about the MAXTOR_ST332062AS… but not about the other disk/by-id’s

I quoted only the particular entry.

Boot to emergency mode – or whatever you can get to. Then use the command:


ls -l /dev/disk/by-id  | grep MAXTOR

That should suggest an alternative device id that will work. It will probably be very similar to the id that you are using, maybe a few characters are different. Make that change to “fstab”, test with:

mount /media/external

and if that looks good, try rebooting after that change.

Ok, I’ll give it a try but it’ll be a tomorrow before I can get back to it.

So any of these should work?

linux-3zqv:/home/don # ls -l /dev/disk/by-id | grep MAXTOR
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 May 28 17:02 ata-MAXTOR_STM3320620AS_…9QF2K6FX → …/…/sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 28 17:02 ata-MAXTOR_STM3320620AS
9QF2K6FX-part1 → …/…/sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 May 28 17:02 scsi-0ATA_MAXTOR_STM332062_9QF2K6FX → …/…/sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 28 17:02 scsi-0ATA_MAXTOR_STM332062_9QF2K6FX-part1 → …/…/sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 May 28 17:02 scsi-1ATA_MAXTOR_STM3320620AS
9QF2K6FX → …/…/sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 28 17:02 scsi-1ATA_MAXTOR_STM3320620AS
…_9QF2K6FX-part1 → …/…/sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 May 28 17:02 scsi-SATA_MAXTOR_STM332062_9QF2K6FX → …/…/sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 28 17:02 scsi-SATA_MAXTOR_STM332062_9QF2K6FX-part1 → …/…/sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 May 28 17:02 scsi-SATA_MAXTOR_STM33206_9QF2K6FX → …/…/sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 May 28 17:02 scsi-SATA_MAXTOR_STM33206_9QF2K6FX-part1 → …/…/sdc1

The ones that have “-part1” should work.

However, the first of those is what you already have, and isn’t working. I’m surprised that you are seeing that. Or maybe you booted install media and are seeing it from there. So try one of the others.

Was this drive physically connected at this point?

Yes. Here is the scenario. I installed 42.1 over 13.2 using the 13.2 partition structure. The fstab contents I posted are after the install and before the patch update. After running the patch update and rebooting is when I get the problem with the MAXTOR drive. Since that problem occurrence, I have reinstalled 42.1, posted the contents of fstab and am about to run the zypper patch again, reboot, get to emergency mode and mess with fstab to see if I can get around the issue. This time I will save the journal.

If you add nofail to the mount options in fstab the boot may not fail if the partition an not be mounted for some reason. That will give you some time to fix the real problem

No joy. I tried all 5 “-part1” options and each failed.

mount:special dedvice /dev......-part1 does not exist

I removed the MAXTOR entry from fstab, rebooted and the system came up fine. Not the ultimate solution but at least I have an updated functional system.

What can I try next?

By the way here’s a snip of the log:

May 29 16:40:55 linux-3zqv kernel: EXT4-fs (dm-2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
May 29 16:42:09 linux-3zqv systemd[1]: Job dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dMAXTOR_STM3320620AS_.._9QF2K6FX\x2dpart1.device/start timed out.
May 29 16:42:09 linux-3zqv systemd[1]: Timed out waiting for device dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dMAXTOR_STM3320620AS_.._9QF2K6FX\x2dpart1.device.
-- Subject: Unit dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dMAXTOR_STM3320620AS_.._9QF2K6FX\x2dpart1.device has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-- 
-- Unit dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dMAXTOR_STM3320620AS_.._9QF2K6FX\x2dpart1.device has failed.
-- 
-- The result is timeout.
May 29 16:42:09 linux-3zqv systemd[1]: Dependency failed for /media/external.
-- Subject: Unit media-external.mount has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-- 
-- Unit media-external.mount has failed.

I just noticed the “x2d” prefixes. Where did they come from?

See if you can use Yast partitioner to put an entry back. It should provide an entry that works.

That’s some sort of encoding. It looks wrong. Perhaps you had a bad char in the “fstab” entries. Or perhaps mount names are generated in a funky way.

In any case, try my other suggestion of adding an entry in Yast partitioner. Let Yast find the drive and decide how to enter it into “fstab”.

Each -part# is a partition on the drive

A look at fdisk -l might help

I went into the Yast partitioner, edited the Maxtor entry to mount by UUID instead of device, it mounted and a reboot completes. All is well again. Now on to some Plasma/KDE issues. Thanks your your help! You guys are an awesome bunch. Never seen you stumped for long. You’ve saved my bacon more than once. Thanks again.