[Bug 875343] Re: Stuck at "Saving installed packages..." when using a custom /var

[dsainty]

Also seeing 100% CPU for tens of seconds (E.g. I just saw it run for
over 2 minutes) in dpkg-deb, followed by a few seconds in dpkg-recheck.

I have none of the separate partitions people talk about.  One single
root partition.  Couldn't be simpler.

This only seemed to happen after reinstalling over a previous failed
installation, when the installer crashed on me.  First install ran fast
but crashed at the end.  Second attempt is slow to the point that it
isn't clear if any progress is being made.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/875343

Title:
  Stuck at "Saving installed packages..." when using a custom /var

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  The installer hangs forever at message "Saving installed packages" under certain conditions. Steps to reproduce:
  - Start gparted, create GPT partition table and create big enough partitions as follows:
  - /dev/sda1 formatted as ext4
  - /dev/sda2 formatted as ext4
  - Start Ubiquity
  - Use default options until you reach "Installation Type"
  - Choose "Something else"
  - Choose usage of partitions and mount points as follows (do NOT format!)
  -- /dev/sda1 on /
  -- /dev/sda2 on /var
  - Hit "Install now" (ignore the warning)
  => Installer will then hang forever. Last message it displays is: "Saving installed packages"

  I have tried this with 14.04 live CDs (daily build) on a physical
  machine and VMs and it always shows this behaviour.

  Some notes:
  - You can avoid the problem, if you mark / or /var (or both) for formatting
  - It only seems to happen with a separate /var partition. If only /usr is different, everything works as expected
  - The problem did not exist in previous installers (before Ubuntu 11.10)

  The reason why I do not want to format with Ubiquity is because I have
  pre-formatted my partitions with special parameters which I cannot set
  in Ubiquity.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
  Package: ubiquity 2.17.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.12.0-7.15-generic 3.12.4
  Uname: Linux 3.12.0-7-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.12.7-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperVersion: 1.336ubuntu1
  Date: Tue Dec 17 01:55:05 2013
  LiveMediaBuild: Xubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha amd64 (20131216)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_US
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: ubiquity
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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