UEFI on Legacy - grub-install fails due to no space left on ESP

Thanks for your report. It's because the EFI partition is full

Oct 23 06:55:22 ubuntu-mate grub-installer: grub-install: error: cannot copy `/usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi-signed/grubx64.efi.signed' to `/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi': No space left on device.
Oct 23 06:55:22 ubuntu-mate grub-installer: error: Running 'grub-install --force --target x86_64-efi "/dev/sdb7"' failed.

Ubiquity tries to re-use ESP if possible.

Given that we booted in Bios mode, I wonder, if ubiquity missdetects the ESP on the usb/cdrom that installer was booted from, as the one that can be reused.... when it really can't.

Whilst looking through the logs, it is not obvious to me, if a sane ESP is present on the target disks, and is usable. Or not.

Not sure which install method is being used, and if everyone is trying to resize / use_free or wiping full disks.

I have only the existing partitions ; since I wanted a fresh install and
therefore both the / and /home partitions were formatted.
I am not able to follow the "No space in ESP" since I never needed to know
about it.

I decided to test with another distro and I could succeed with no issues
(Fedora Live Station 30) and I am running all without any issue coming up
so far (touch wood !!)

{{ Five OSs MultiBoot with two sata disks (500GB +1000GB) in a Intel P4
Machine with Gigabyte GA31 MB }}

Really it is an antique one which I got assembled in 2004. Later main
upgrades were adding DVD and DVD Writer and Sata HDs from original 40GB
Disk over all these years.

Just for informazion.

K L A Khan
Email : <email address hidden>

On Tue 27 Oct, 2020, 3:25 PM Dimitri John Ledkov, <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Ubiquity tries to re-use ESP if possible.
>
> Given that we booted in Bios mode, I wonder, if ubiquity missdetects the
> ESP on the usb/cdrom that installer was booted from, as the one that can
> be reused.... when it really can't.
>
> Whilst looking through the logs, it is not obvious to me, if a sane ESP
> is present on the target disks, and is usable. Or not.
>
> Not sure which install method is being used, and if everyone is trying
> to resize / use_free or wiping full disks.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1901137
>
> Title:
> UEFI on Legacy - grub-install fails due to no space left on ESP
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1901137/+subscriptions
>

I have 3 OS's (Windows and last 2 Ubuntu's) on my first laptop hard drive (SDD). Every 6 months (for the last few years) I had these actions: keep Windows 10 that came with the laptop, keep the previous Ubuntu and install the latest formatting the partition with the ones 2 launches away. This time it did not work, for the first time, so it is something only related to 20.04 version.
(my BIOS is in legacy mode)

It says that fix is commited, does it mean it will go into the Ubuntu .iso so we can install it?
Thank you for trying to fix for the noobies!

For me, it seems that the installer is ignoring my setting on where to install MBR (on the Something else... partition screen of the installer). I confirmed that the selected device both has an EFI partition, and that the EFI Partition has space (more than 200 MB). I am booting off external SD card reader, where I installed the Live Installer. Note the live installer EFI partition is only 5MB. I deselected the EFI partition from the liveinstall card ("Do not use this partition") and tried setting the "Install MBR to device" setting to both the internal SD disk device, and the specific partition. (If this isn't the same problem as here, recommend reopening 1902438)

I am able to mount and view the desired EFI Partition from the livesession.

As additional confirmation that the installer was trying to write the MBR to the install media, I was successful in installing 20.10 from the same install media on the same hardware by booting the install media to ram, as described here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/829917/can-i-boot-a-live-usb-fully-to-ram-allowing-me-to-remove-the-disk.

I then removed the install media once live, and ran the install, and all installation went without a hitch, and I am now commenting from a fresh, new 20.10 install.

In my case, install media is a removable SD card, if that's pertinent.

I just tried the workaround tested by @Matt, to add the toram option on booting the USB drive, but in my case, it did not work. Maybe "toram" did not work, don't know how to test thst, but in my installation of 20.10 Ubuntu, I got the same grub intall failure. If it matters, I did not remove the usb thumb drive. I will attach the messages during the failure, in my case it seems to try installing EUFI, but my Bios is in legacy mode.

I know there is not much happening here, but anyone managed to install? Should I select the /dev/sda6 partition for installing the grub (or whatever it installs) - it is the partition I keep another Ubuntu version (besides Windows) or it will mess up booting the laptop? Until now, on both Ubuntu versions I keep I selected /dev/sda for installing and worked every time, until 20.10. Thanks!

My bug report #1902269 has been marked as duplicated of this one even if the description it's not exactly the same.

In any case it looks the problem is related to the EFI (ESP) partition, that should never be used on old BIOS or UEFI in Legacy Mode, but for some reasons the installer want it... even if we are NOT in "UEFI mode".

This might be related to recent changes of the installer https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/groovy-to-use-grub2-for-booting-installer-media-in-any-modes-on-all-architectures/16871
You have probably noticed that now there's no difference between uefi or bios mode. When you boot the live USB, you see the same grub menu.

After many tests, these are the case where the installation has been successful:

- updating the system directly from Focal (from 20.04 to 20.10)

- creating an EFI partition during manual partitioning.
In this case the partition must be a primary partition.
(One user was able to set the EFI partition on a USB drive... it was not my case).

- Installing Ubuntu using the "Erase the disk and install Ubuntu.." will also succeed. EFI partition will be automatically created.
(Also the option "Install Ubuntu next Windows" should work, but there must be enough space for a primary partition for the EFI).

As reported on bug #1893964 (comment #8), the user was able to install the system skipping the "grub-install" launching Ubiquity with the command:
ubiquity -b
Then he manually recovered GRUB. I've tried the same, but with no success... still had problems with efi. The log reported several errors and one of them was:
## pc systemd[1]: Dependency failed for /boot/efi.
## Subject: L'unità boot-efi.mount è fallita
## Defined-By: systemd
## Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support

I hope there will be a solution as soon as possible, this is one of the worst bug ever :(
The only lucky thing is that Ubuntu 20.10 is NOT a LTS... other wise many more users could have been in trouble.

I managed to run 20.10 after connecting to that installation from my other running Ubuntu with chroot, installing net-tools (seemed to be missing for some reason so I had no ifconfig) and then update + upgrade. There was a kernel update and grub found what it needed to be able to boot also 20.10.

Even the most straight-forward option "Erase disk and install Ubuntu" failed for me on non-UEFI system when installing from USB. I noticed that 20.04 created a single bootable partition while 20.10 creates additional BIOS Boot and EFI System partitions.

The Bug #1893964 Comment #8 workaround (doing grub-install manually) worked for me but after updating I still had to correct /etc/fstab for the /boot/efi device partition.

Thank you for your email. I went back to reinstall 20.04.LTS without any
problem.

On Fri 11 Dec, 2020, 3:20 PM Plurtu, <email address hidden> wrote:

> Even the most straight-forward option "Erase disk and install Ubuntu"
> failed for me on non-UEFI system when installing from USB. I noticed
> that 20.04 created a single bootable partition while 20.10 creates
> additional BIOS Boot and EFI System partitions.
>
> The Bug #1893964 Comment #8 workaround (doing grub-install manually)
> worked for me but after updating I still had to correct /etc/fstab for
> the /boot/efi device partition.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1901137
>
> Title:
> UEFI on Legacy - grub-install fails due to no space left on ESP
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1901137/+subscriptions
>