[Bug 452350] Re: Unknown LVM metadata header

Mon Mar 26 08:47:28 UTC 2012

I saw this as well on a server where a forgotten PV label caused the
error message.

In my case, I sequentially checked all the partitions and raid volumes
with 'pvck' until I found the incorrectly marked one, in my case
/dev/sdh1.  This partition was part of an MD array, so I failed it from
the raid 6 array, removed it, then wiped the label with 'pvremove
/dev/sdh1' -ff.  It forced me to use the -ff flag in this case, because
the PV label incorrectly indicated that it belonged to an active VG.
The header was wrong, so using -ff was the correct solution.  I re-added
/dev/sdh1 back into the array and it resynced without an issue.  Problem
gone and no further error messages.

In summary, I do not believe this to be a bug, but rather a correctly
given error message from LVM where it detects inconsistent or missing
data.

The solution I recommend is to hunt down the incorrect PV label and wipe
it.  Naturally, taking care not to fiddle with the device or partition
if it is in use elsewhere when wiping the PV label is a good idea.

I suspect that using pvremove on a device, even when it is in use
elsewhere may potentially be safe _because_ the label would not be there
in the first place if that particular block was in use.  YMMV.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/452350

Title:
  Unknown LVM metadata header

Status in “grub2” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in “grub2” package in Debian:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: grub2

  update-grub2 appears to run successfully, but generates a lot of
  "error: Unknown LVM metadata header" messages in the process. LVM was
  created during install on a clean system (using ubuntu-9.10-beta-
  alternate-i386.iso).

  $ sudo update-grub2
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  Generating grub.cfg ...
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-11-generic
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-11-generic
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header
  error: Unknown LVM metadata header

  Here's some extra info that may help:

  $ mount
  /dev/mapper/root-root on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro)
  proc on /proc type proc (rw)
  none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
  none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
  none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
  none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
  udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
  none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
  none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
  none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
  none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
  none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
  /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext2 (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noatime)

  $ ls -la /boot
  total 26783
  drwxr-xr-x  4 root root    1024 2009-10-15 11:27 .
  drwxr-xr-x 22 root root    4096 2008-11-18 16:28 ..
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root  628340 2009-09-25 05:18 abi-2.6.31-11-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root  629174 2009-10-15 01:09 abi-2.6.31-14-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root  111218 2009-09-25 05:18 config-2.6.31-11-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root  111371 2009-10-15 01:09 config-2.6.31-14-generic
  drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    3072 2009-10-15 11:58 grub
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 7297493 2008-11-17 15:49 initrd.img-2.6.31-11-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 7283454 2009-10-15 11:27 initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
  drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   12288 2008-11-17 15:24 lost+found
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root  128796 2009-09-28 05:17 memtest86+.bin
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 1657331 2009-09-25 05:18 System.map-2.6.31-11-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 1664737 2009-10-15 01:09 System.map-2.6.31-14-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root    1196 2009-09-25 05:21 vmcoreinfo-2.6.31-11-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root    1196 2009-10-15 01:12 vmcoreinfo-2.6.31-14-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 3873888 2009-09-25 05:18 vmlinuz-2.6.31-11-generic
  -rw-r--r--  1 root root 3890400 2009-10-15 01:09 vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic

  $ sudo sfdisk -l /dev/sda

  Disk /dev/sda: 974 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
  Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

     Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
  /dev/sda1   *      0+     30      31-    248976   83  Linux
  /dev/sda2         31     973     943    7574647+  8e  Linux LVM
  /dev/sda3          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
  /dev/sda4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty

  ProblemType: Bug
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Thu Oct 15 11:59:41 2009
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
  Package: grub-pc 1.97~beta4-1ubuntu1
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=C
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.47-generic
  SourcePackage: grub2
  Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686

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