Bug 18536

Summary: drakboot crashed (grub2-install: error: cannot find EFI directory)
Product: Mageia Reporter: Herbert Poetzl <herbert>
Component: RPM PackagesAssignee: Barry Jackson <zen25000>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE QA Contact:
Severity: normal    
Priority: Normal CC: herbert, marja11
Version: 5   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Source RPM: drakxtools-16.104-1.mga5 CVE:
Status comment:

Description Herbert Poetzl 2016-05-24 23:30:51 CEST 
The "drakboot" program crashed. Drakbug-16.104 caught it.

trying to change the default kernel from server to desktop.

grub2-install failed: Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
grub2-install: error: cannot find EFI directory.
	...propagated at /usr/lib/libDrakX/any.pm line 268.
	...propagated at /usr/libexec/drakboot line 64.
Perl's trace:
drakbug::bug_handler() called from /usr/libexec/drakboot:64

Theme name: BlueMenta
Kernel version = 4.1.15-server-2.mga5
Distribution=Mageia release 5 (Official) for x86_64
CPU=Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v3 @ 2.40GHz
Comment 1 Marja Van Waes 2016-05-25 21:10:40 CEST 
@ Barry

Do you mind looking into this?

CC: (none) => marja11
Assignee: bugsquad => zen25000

Marja Van Waes 2016-05-25 21:11:13 CEST

Summary: drakboot crashed => drakboot crashed (grub2-install: error: cannot find EFI directory)

Comment 2 Barry Jackson 2016-05-26 02:02:51 CEST 
Herbert could you please give gdisk output for the drive containing the ESP?

Something like:
-----------------------------------------
$ su
# gdisk /dev/sda
              
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1                                                                                                                                                          
Partition table scan:                                                                                                                      
  MBR: protective                                                                                                                          
  BSD: not present                                                                                                                         
  APM: not present                                                                                                                         
  GPT: present                                                                                                                             

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): i      *(Type i here and ENTER)*
Partition number (1-7): 3    *(Type partition number for ESP and ENTER)*
Partition GUID code: C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B (EFI System)
Partition unique GUID: 81205677-D95E-40C2-9A11-77988BAECE1B
First sector: 8235008 (at 3.9 GiB)
Last sector: 8849407 (at 4.2 GiB)
Partition size: 614400 sectors (300.0 MiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: ''

Command (? for help): q (and Enter to quit)
---------------------------------------------------

Check that the ESP is displayed as "EFI System" as in mine above.
Comment 3 Herbert Poetzl 2016-05-26 11:21:23 CEST 
Here you go ...

# gdisk /dev/sdc
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.10

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): i
Partition number (1-5): 1
Partition GUID code: C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B (EFI System)
Partition unique GUID: 658A16FB-244C-43D3-A851-B935D70294E2
First sector: 2048 (at 1024.0 KiB)
Last sector: 524287 (at 256.0 MiB)
Partition size: 522240 sectors (255.0 MiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: 'BOOT'

Command (? for help): q

CC: (none) => herbert

Comment 4 Barry Jackson 2016-05-26 12:47:41 CEST 
That looks OK.

Have previous kernel *updates* gone cleanly?

If so what happens if you boot into the previous kernel and use MCC to remove the current kernel?

If that does not error then try to re-install the current kernel and check that goes OK.

I'm trying to determine whether this is kernel related or a grub2 issue.

What is the history of this installation? i.e. Continuous upgrades from previous Mga versions, recent install (from LIVE or Classical) etc?
Comment 5 Herbert Poetzl 2016-05-26 13:00:51 CEST 
Kernel updates are not a problem.
System was a fresh install with Mageia 5 back when it was released.

It happened when I wanted to select the default kernel.
I then used grub-customizer to adjust the default.

Now it doesn't crash anymore, but it claims that:
"No bootloader found, creating a new configuration"

I presume it doesn't really look at /dev/sdc and its partitions or the mount table but instead assumes that /dev/sda "must" be the boot device. But maybe I'm completely wrong and it is a more sophisticated issue.

Booting and different kernels work fine.

Best,
Herbert
Comment 6 Barry Jackson 2016-05-26 13:27:13 CEST 
(In reply to Herbert Poetzl from comment #5)
> Kernel updates are not a problem.
> System was a fresh install with Mageia 5 back when it was released.
> 
> It happened when I wanted to select the default kernel.

By "select" I assume you mean change the default?

How did you try to do that before you used grub-customizer?

> I then used grub-customizer to adjust the default.
> 
> Now it doesn't crash anymore, but it claims that:
> "No bootloader found, creating a new configuration"

I think this is another issue which has also occurred in cauldron recently after failed attempts (for other reasons) to run grub2-install. after a successful grub2-install the message goes away. (in Cauldron)

> 
> I presume it doesn't really look at /dev/sdc and its partitions or the mount
> table but instead assumes that /dev/sda "must" be the boot device. But maybe
> I'm completely wrong and it is a more sophisticated issue.

It should look at all partitions, and the error does indicate that it cannot find the directory not the partition, however that may just be a badly worded error message.

> 
> Booting and different kernels work fine.
> 
> Best,
> Herbert


Regards,
Barry
Comment 7 Herbert Poetzl 2016-05-26 13:42:03 CEST 
>> It happened when I wanted to select the default kernel.

> By "select" I assume you mean change the default?

Correct, bad phrasing. 
Since grub2 I have no clue how to do that manually.

> How did you try to do that before you used grub-customizer?

With drak-boot --boot, which crashed and caused this bug report. :)

> It should look at all partitions, and the error does indicate that it cannot
> find the directory not the partition, 

When I go one step further, it suggest /dev/sda as boot disk, which is incorrect.

Best,
Herbert
Comment 8 Barry Jackson 2016-05-26 16:08:57 CEST 
(In reply to Herbert Poetzl from comment #7)
> >> It happened when I wanted to select the default kernel.
> 
> > By "select" I assume you mean change the default?
> 
> Correct, bad phrasing. 
> Since grub2 I have no clue how to do that manually.

In /etc/default/grub add the line:
GRUB_DEFAULT=N (where N is the line number you want to boot by default)
Then run update-grub2.

There are various other ways but that is the simplest. See grub2 manual for more details https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Simple-configuration.html

> 
> > How did you try to do that before you used grub-customizer?
> 
> With drak-boot --boot, which crashed and caused this bug report. :)

Ah - that was not supported in Mga5 and should have been in the errata, however it seems to be missing or was badly copied from the Mageia 4 errata.

This "bug" https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9627 is supposed to be fixed in Cauldron, however I just tested it and totally screwed up grub2 - been trying to fix it for a couple of hours and failed. :/
Don't try it!

So, closing as duplicate of 9627

Barry

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 9627 ***

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => DUPLICATE

Comment 9 Herbert Poetzl 2016-05-26 16:15:33 CEST 
Ah, nice! Thanks a bunch for the 'Simple-configuration' link. Appreciated!

Best,
Herbert