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SD card with Ubuntu Desktop created with Pi Imager fails to boot (issue specific to 32GB SD cards)

us flag

I have used Pi Imager on my regular Ubuntu system to write Ubuntu Desktop to my SD card. When I try to boot from it in my Pi 400, I get the following error:

[50B]: Failed to remount '/' read-only: Device or resource busy
systemd-shutdown[1]: Failed to finalize filesystems, ignoring.

and then the Pi shuts down.

To try to troubleshoot, after the repeatable failed boots, I inserted this card as USB storage (through card reader) and confirmed that both partitions created by Pi imager on that Ubuntu SD card are visible, readable and writable. fsck does not throw any errors for either partition so it looks like filesystem is not corrupted.

What could be the reason the system fails to boot?


The issue turned out to be caused by the card reader I used to get Ubuntu onto this SD card. I was able to use Pi Imager on the Pi itself to boot to Ubuntu with no problem and now I have an issue with desktop environment: Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 freezes when interacting with GUI (desktop environment) on Raspberry Pi 400

us flag
I am using SD card in SD slot. (I only used SD card adapter to run fsck on that Ubuntu card that failed to boot, under Raspbian on the same Pi using the same SD card slot which I used for Ubuntu that failed to load, as I don't have any other computer at hand at the moment.) I edited the question to clarify this.
pasman pasmański avatar
mx flag
Check ubuntu server image. Is it responsible ?
sudodus avatar
jp flag
What is the file name of the Ubuntu image file? What are the exact sizes of the SD card and the Ubuntu image file. The card must not be one single byte smaller so it is not enough to look at the nominal size. Check the card size with `lsblk -bd -o name,size,model` and the file size with `ls -l filename`. Did you check with a checksum, that the image file was downloaded correctly?
us flag
@pasmanpasmański It turned out the problem was caused by the card reader which I used to create Ubuntu SD card. It boots fine now and the 'server' portion of the system works perfectly fine which can't be said of the desktop environment: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1369466/ubuntu-desktop-21-10-freezes-when-interacting-with-gui-desktop-environment-on
us flag
@sudodus The Ubuntu image was Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 which is the only desktop version of Ubuntu in Pi Imager which I used. Re-flashing the card solved the boot issue but the desktop environment does not work properly: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1369466/ubuntu-desktop-21-10-freezes-when-interacting-with-gui-desktop-environment-on
Score:0
us flag

Anyone who has a problem with booting OS on Raspberry Pi might find a solution here: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=58151

In my case, it turns out it wasn't Ubuntu-specific at all: it just happened that I flashed Ubuntu image on 32GB microSD card which I put into microSD-SD adapter which I then inserted into SD card reader "port" in a laptop and even though all files required for boot seemed to be there, apparently something in that chain of adapters/readers didn't fully support SDXC standard needed to flash the image on this 32GB card correctly: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=248968

I re-flashed the card using Pi Imager and microSD reader inserted into USB port of Pi 400 and Ubuntu booted fine.

Now I have an issue with the desktop environment which I link to below just in case someone who solved the boot issue thanks to this also experiences the same issue with Gnome (or desktop environments on Ubuntu in general):

Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 freezes when interacting with GUI (desktop environment) on Raspberry Pi 400

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