Ubuntu
ubiquity package

Ubiquity installer fails to start silently if debconf's config.dat is locked by another program

Bug #128693 reported by Mantas Kriaučiūnas
10
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
ubiquity (Baltix)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
ubiquity (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: ubiquity

Ubiquity installer fails silently to start if debconf's config.dat is locked by another program, for example if user is in install process of msttcorefonts or flashplugin-nonfree package (which takes pretty long if user's internet connection is slow).

This problem is pretty important, as user isn't informed why clicking on Install launcher doesn't produce any visible result :(

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote :

Fixing this would sort out a number of other latent problems, so importance Medium.

Changed in ubiquity:
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Confirmed
Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)
Changed in ubiquity (Baltix):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Kellen Renshaw (krenshaw) wrote :

This bug has been encountered when running Ubiquity with the automatic-ubiquity kernel option in 16.04. The output of systemctl status ubiquity.service has the following:

systemd[1]: Starting Ubuntu live CD installer...
start-ubiquity-dm[XXXX]: debconf: DbDriver "templatedb": /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat is locaked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
...
start-ubiquity-dm[XXXX]: debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locaked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
start-ubiquity-dm[XXXX]: Debconf database is locked!
start-ubiquity-dm[XXXX]: This may be because a package management program is running.
systemd[1]: ubiquity.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
systemd[1]: Failed to start Ubuntu live CD installer.
systemd[1]: ubiquity.service: Unit entered failed state.
systemd[1]: ubiquity.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Modifying /usr/share/ubiquity/start-ubiquity-dm to wait for the locks to be released seems to work around the issue.

Revision history for this message
Ove Risberg (ove-risberg) wrote :

This is still a problem in Ubuntu 18.04 :(

I want ubiquity to wait until it can get a lock on the debconf databases... and perhaps timeout after a few minutes.

Revision history for this message
Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox) wrote :

I am considering creating ephemeral database in /run and set DEBCONF_DB_OVERRIDE, such that even when config.dat is locked, one can start ubiquity.

Separately, I want to wipe that ephemeral database on quiting the installer, to wipe the state machine it has generated.

At the moment, if one answers a couple of questions, closes and restarts the installer, the shadow state / previous answers are shown and used.

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