[Bug 1032874] Re: Mount command on extended partition hangs forever during install

[Chris J Arges]

** Also affects: hw-detect (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1032874

Title:
  Mount command on extended partition hangs forever during install

Status in “hw-detect” package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “hw-detect” source package in Precise:
  New
Status in “linux” source package in Precise:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Re-installing Precise with kernels 3.2.0-26 or 3.2.0-27 from the
  precise-updates repo hangs forever when searching for install media on
  systems that do this from check-missing-firmware. The underlying
  problem is a hanging mount command. The problem doesn't exist using
  3.2.0-23 in the precise repo.

  When the installer detects that it needs to load some missing
  firmware, it tries to mount every available partition as '/media'. If
  the hard drive is already partitioned and has an extended partition,
  the installer will try to mount the extended partition and hang
  indefinitely. Sending SIGKILL to the mount command does nothing.

  Eventually, the kernel will start logging 'INFO: task mount:3559
  blocked for more than 120 seconds.' messages.

  To reproduce, on ThinkPad T420s (or most other laptops with wireless) that already has Ubuntu installed with an extended partition (for example, sda2):
  1. Boot the kernel/initramfs for the network installer at  /ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/
  2. Select language and keyboard options
  3. Installer hangs forever
  4. Alt-F2 to another terminal
  5. Run ps, see stalled mount command, like 'mount -tauto /dev/sda2 /media'

  On 3.2.0-23, the mount command will return immediately with an error,
  as expected (since mounting and extended partition doesn't make
  sense).

  Regardless of what hardware is used, running the mount command on an
  extended partition always stalls. The hardware only makes a difference
  in deciding whether the mount command is called during install.

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