Updated btrfs-tools prevents boot to btrfs root

[timc]

This is probably more of a Debian issue, but I run Siduction with my root filesystem on btrfs. This morning's btrfs-tools package upgrade (from 0.19+20121004-1 to 0.19+20130131-1) prevented my system from booting. The failure was fsck of my root device.

I was able to reboot to my Parted Magic CD and successfully ran btrfsck against my root filesystem. However, reattempting to boot my Siduction system still failed with the same problem.

The guys in the btrfs IRC channel helped me to mount my root filesystem rw and edit fstab, removing the fsck flag from my root filesystem. They also said that a future patch should fix the problem.

Tim

[dibl]

There was a halt and a warning in dist-upgrade -- did you not see that?  My btrfs filesystem is only for data storage, and I saw there was no new kernel so I had no need to reboot or worry about it.

[timc]

No, mine did not halt, no warning. What did it say?

Tim

[timc]

I have tracked down the (critical) bug that got me:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=701776

[dibl]

Hmmm, I just ran d-u on another system, thinking I would capture that warning for you, but that one ran through the d-u with no halt and no warning message.  Odd.  This morning on my desktop system, the d-u halted and gave a very explicit message that the new btrfs-tools package had a critical bug that could result in a non-bootable system, and then you had to do a "Y/n/i" to proceed with the d-u.  But on my Dell E6500 just now there was no halt and no message.  So, I dunno .....

[dibl]

The (presumed) fixed btrfs-tools package is now available in the repos here, via d-u.

[timc]

Excellent. Thank you, dibl.

After installation, should I turn fsck back on for root?

Tim

[timc]

No luck. I upgraded the package to version 0.19+20130131-2, turned the fsck flag back on, and reboot had the same failure on fsck. At least I already know how to work around it.

Tim

PS - The bug report log confirms this.

[timc]

A new bug has been opened on this issue. I sense that they are not making much progress with it.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=701956

Tim

[timc]

Status: This bug is now assigned to package initscripts and severity has been re-escalated to Critical.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=701956

Tim

[agaida]

Solution: Don't use btrfs - unless you want to have fun

[dibl]

Just to be clear -- the problem only exists for the use case where the root filesystem is BTRFS.  There is no issue for other partitions.

[timc]

And the problem is easily avoided by turning off boot-time fsck for root.

Tim