[debbugs-tracker] bug#36865: closed (GRUB (or 'grub.cfg') is not registered as a GC root)

[GNU bug Tracking System]

Your message dated Mon, 26 Aug 2019 10:19:00 +0200
with message-id <address@hidden>
and subject line Re: bug#36865: Guix gc breaks grub
has caused the debbugs.gnu.org bug report #36865,
regarding GRUB (or 'grub.cfg') is not registered as a GC root
to be marked as done.

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-- 
36865: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=36865
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--- Begin Message --- Subject: Guix gc breaks grub Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2019 22:03:54 +0000 User-agent: Cyrus-JMAP/3.1.6-799-g925e343-fmstable-20190729v1

Symptoms

After running guix gc, and rebooting, I got the following errors (which stay something like half a second on the screen):

error: no such device: /gnu/store/0fijjh7qw8ppsks0ba3q9m873ljhj797-grub-2.04/share/grub/unicode.pf2

error: file `/gnu/store/0fijjh7qw8ppsks0ba3q9m873ljhj797-grub-2.04/share/grub/unicode.pf2' not found.

error: no suitable video mode found.

error: no video mode activated.

I then get to the grub menu where I can pick which version of Guix I want to boot on, but all of them lead to getting stuck on the following text (with nothing moving after that for at least several minutes):

error: no suitable video mode found.

Booting in blind mod

Fix

Fortunately nckx was on IRC and saved me by telling me to press C to get the grub command line when I got to the grub menu and run setup_gfxterm.

Running guix system reconfigure config.scm removed the need for setup_gfxterm for subsequent boots.

Cause

guix gc thinks that grub (and a lot of other stuff that it shouldn't think is dead) is dead, as shown by the following commands (given by nckx):

$ grep unicode /boot/grub/grub.cfg

search --file --set /gnu/store/0fijjh7qw8ppsks0ba3q9m873ljhj797-grub-2.04/share/grub/unicode.pf2
if loadfont /gnu/store/0fijjh7qw8ppsks0ba3q9m873ljhj797-grub-2.04/share/grub/unicode.pf2; then

$ guix gc --list-dead | grep 0fijjh7qw8ppsks0ba3q9m873ljhj797
finding garbage collector roots...
determining live/dead paths...
/gnu/store/0fijjh7qw8ppsks0ba3q9m873ljhj797-grub-2.04

I was also able to reproduce the bug by running guix gc and rebooting again.

--- End Message ---

> --- Begin Message ---
>
>
>
> Subject: 
>
> Re: bug#36865: Guix gc breaks grub
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Mon, 26 Aug 2019 10:19:00 +0200
>
>
>
>
> User-agent: 
>
> Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/26.2 (gnu/linux)
>
>
>
>
> Hi Jakob,
>
> address@hidden (Jakob L. Kreuze) skribis:
>
> > Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> writes:
> >
> >> Jakob, does that ring a bell?
> >
> > Yes, this was fixed by #36880.
>
> Looking more closely, it seems to be
> <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/36942>.
>
> Anyway, closing.  Thanks for your feedback!
>
> Ludo’.
>
>
> --- End Message ---