[Bug 998512] Re: Checking disk drives for errors at every boot

[Vince O'Farrell]

After upgrading from 11.10 to 12.04 Precise, I too suffered from the
unclean-shutdown->disk-check-on-every-startup problem.  I found the
cause of my problem last week thanks to info from the various posts
below.  I am reporting it here in case it is relevant.

At first, I guessed that Network Manager was to blame, especially since I am also having problems with a hang at shutdown which I suspect is to do with unmounting some CIFS shares.  NM however was not the cause but in following the advice in this bug report
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/963106 
I added some diagnostic logging to the /etc/init.d/umountroot script as described in message #5.

This showed that plymouthd was still running at the time it should have terminated and this led me to this posting
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2008576 
which in turn led me to
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/upstart/+bug/1019347 

I followed the suggestion in comment #7 of bug 1019347 and added the line
/bin/plymouth quit
to the /etc/init.d/umountroot script just before root is remounted read-only.  (This is the same point that the diagnostic logging described in 963106 had been inserted.)

Result: clean shutdowns and no more disk checks on each and every start.

Now, it must be said that there are other candidates for the cause of this problem and it is worth looking at these too if you find that plymouthd is behaving itself on your system.  One that was relevant to me is ensuring you use the latest Nvidia driver if you use proprietary Nvidia graphics in your system.  Google for
12.04 nvidia shutdown
to find lots of reports.  I upgraded to the latest Nvidia driver but the unclean shutdown continued until I fixed the plymouthd problem.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to util-linux in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/998512

Title:
  Checking disk drives for errors at every boot

Status in “util-linux” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 12.04

  util-linux 2.20.1-1ubuntu3

  At absolutely every boot, fsck starts a disk drive check, causing a long wait with the message checking disk drives for errors. No error is found though, and the preceding shutdown is done regularly. Whether you let the check finish or cancel it, it will invariably keep coming up in the next boot.
  I've tried tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 [My boot drive], no difference. However, if I check with tune2fs -l , I see the command has worked fine though.
  I checked my boot partition from a live boot session with tune2fs -l, without mounting the partition of course, and saw that the filesystem state was set "not clean", whereas it wasn't mounted, which I guess is not normal and may be the cause for the needless systematic disk drive check. So, could the problem be when 12.04 unmounts the boot partition at shutdown?
  Many have the same issue and you can have a look at this forum thread : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1973178

  This seems  hugely obvious however I can't see it's been reported...

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/998512/+subscriptions