I'm experiencing a peculiar problem with two of my Ubuntu server VMs after upgrading them from version 18.04 to 22.04. After running a couple of 'do-release-upgrade' cycles, the second VM just hangs on booting. The logs suggest it's failing while trying to mount vda1. However, when I boot into the rescue console and then resume booting normally, it starts up just fine! I'm puzzled because out of 20 VMs, only these two are failing in the exact same way. I've checked configurations, updated the machine type to 'pc', rebuilt initramfs, and updated grub, but nothing has helped. I suspect it may be a machine configuration issue since these VMs also struggled to boot the Ubuntu 22.04 live desktop. Has anyone seen something like this before, or does anyone have any ideas?
3 Answers
The issue could be with your fstab or udev settings. Sometimes device names change from sdx to vdx during an upgrade, which can cause issues. It might help to comment out or set 'nofail' for the entries in fstab temporarily to see if the system can boot. Also, enabling persistent journaling might shed some light on what's happening. Keep us updated; it sounds like an interesting challenge!
It might be worth running a filesystem check (fsck) on the disks. It's typically a good starting point for diagnosing boot issues. Just to confirm, you mentioned that the disk is fine when mounted normally, right? It sounds odd that two different disk images would fail in the same way, but it’s worth a shot.
This seems to be a somewhat known issue when upgrading from older versions like 18.04 to 22.04, especially in KVM/QEMU setups. The hanging might be because the initramfs is trying to mount `vda1` before the virtio bus is ready. You might want to rebuild initramfs to ensure the necessary drivers for virtio are included. Also adding a line to your GRUB configuration for a slight delay (like 'rootdelay=10') could help. If that doesn't work, consider updating the machine type to something more modern, like 'pc-q35-6.2'.
Thanks for the tips! I'll definitely look into adjusting the initramfs settings and see if the delay helps. Getting a little sleep now, but I’ll try this tomorrow.
I find that most times using online tools can lead to worse issues; it's better to rely on your own knowledge and understanding. Best of luck! Just remember that thorough logs can provide valuable hints for troubleshooting.
Yeah, I did try that first, and thankfully no errors were found. Still scratching my head over this!