Linux Lite Forums

A number of support threads have been raised in which this has been evident.

On a test system, installed OS from LL7.4 iso and attempting all the updates post installation.

During the upgrade, it appears the grub-efi-amd64-signed set up script can't find the location of the GRUB boot loader.
As a result of this problem, the grub script requires user intervention to manually confirm where it is or should be.

If update/upgrade is done from the cli, the grub-efi-amd64-signed configuration script calls a text based configuration tool.
The tool is similar in style to something like nmtui and the user is expected to navigate the menu to select and confirm the location of the GRUB boot loader.

My guess is that the lite-updates script is not equipped to handle this situation and throws an update/upgrade failure message with a cryptic message stating

Quote:mount: /var/lib/grub/esp: special device /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBad170837-5acc172c-part2 does not exist.

and

Quote:grub-efi-amd64-signed package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 32

Checking indicates that the update/upgrade initiated by lite-updates did in fact work despite the error message but this is transparent to the user who is instructed to seek help on the forum.

Hi Steve, thanks for this.

Would you mind putting a step by step so I can reproduce this, I can't wrap my head around what you have written.

Step 1: xxxx

Step 2: xxxx

Step 3: xxxx

No worries.  Hopefully this is more comprehensible.

Here's what I did to reproduce the user reports of problem and try to find out why it might be happening.

Step 1 Fresh install of 7.4 from live media
      Double click 'Install Linux Lite'
      Select appropriate options for language, keyboard etc
      No connection to network
      Install third party software
      Erase Disk and Install Linux
      Appropriate Timezone and user setup
      Reboot and login
      uname -r reports 6.8.0-56-generic

Step 2 Snapshot with System Restore Utility
      Exclude user home

Step 3 Connect to network

Step 4 Run Install Updates via the Package Update Indicator on the panel
      Update reports/calculates 220 items (including 6 grub related)
      Click 'Update Now'
      The downloading, installing and configuring windows display as expected.
      Ends with the 'Install Updates Error'.  A trimmed copy pasted below.

The key indicator for the problem is

Quote:Setting up grub-efi-amd64-signed (1.202.5+2.12-1ubuntu7.3) ...
mount: /var/lib/grub/esp: special device /dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VBad170837-5acc172c-part2 does not exist.
      dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
dpkg: error processing package grub-efi-amd64-signed (--configure):
installed grub-efi-amd64-signed package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 32

Step 5 Shutdown, power up and login
      uname -r reports 6.8.0-62-generic
      This indicates (to me) that the previous Install Updates was largely successful.
      Run 'sudo apt-get update'
      At this point, the Package Update Indicator reports all updated

      However, sudo apt-get upgrade reports 1 package not fully installed or removed
      The outstanding package is grub-efi-amd64-signed.

      At the 'Do You Want to Continue {Y/n}' prompt press Y

      A text based package configuration tool opens reports the GRUB boot loader is not present or the IUD has changed.
      The user is required to use Tab or the mouse to get to a text button marked <Ok> to accept the location.
      The package then gets installed to that location.

I suppose the first question is why does the grub-efi-amd64-signed installer trigger the text based tool ?
And secondly how does lite-updates deal with that.

If you want any further information, please let me know.

Thanks Steve, I'll tackle this tomorrow.

Did you try this on hardware or a VM, if so a VM, what brand and version?

No VM involved.
The test install is on an Acer notebook which is my 7.x test machine.
As reported (and reproduced), the problem is from a fresh install of 7.4 using erase disk.
The Acer was previously running 7.0, then 7.2 and then 7.4 using the in series update without a problem.

---

Incidentally, if you do a search for exactly "VBOX_HARDDISK_VBad170837-5acc172c-part2" the only links are to here, so it is something quite specific.

This is the pop-up text configuration screen which appears to be linked to the failure.
This appears when doing a CLI initiated update/upgrade.
The process will wait at this point until press Tab to highlight OK and then return.
Having intervened the CLI upgrade then completes successfully.

lite-updates does not appear to pause at this point so it must do something to deal with the situation.
However it handles it, the result is lite-updates reporting that grubefi-amd64-signed failed to upgrade.