9 + 13 + 2 = 25?

[sean]

FYI

Just sharing, I'm no wiz at computers, and got very lucky solving this problem.

Day before yesterday I had a grandson visiting and plugged in a Porteus 2.0 "rc2" memory stick, to let him play. I was showing him what different programs do and eventually got into PPM downloading and converting guvcview from the Debian repository. This program hung or was very slow converting, and we ran out of time. I had to shut down the system in a hurry.

Yesterday morning I booted the same memory stick, this time using "copy2ram" cheat code, typed after "tabbing" at the menu screen, and eventually got a nasty looking screen of errors:

^ Cannot read .xzm - corrupted module?
rmdir: '/memory/images/.xzm' : Device or resource busy
mkdir: can't create directory '/memory/images/.xzm ': File exists
^ copying content of /mnt/sdc1/porteus/rootcopy directory
^ changing root directory
live system is ready now - starting Porteus
cp: can't stat '/union/sbin/init ': No such file or directory
!!ERROR!!
Something went wrong and I cannot continue.
Press Ctrl+"Alt+Del to reboot.
#_

I followed the instructions and did the warm reboot. This time however, I let it boot without using the copy2ram cheat code. Everything went fine, no problem.

I did another warm boot and tried typing cheat code "copy2ram" again. No luck, same ugly error screen. Did another warm boot and scrolled down the menu to copy 2 ram, clicked enter and again, no luck, same ugly error screen.

So the system won't boot with "copy2ram", however if I let it boot without that request it boots up normally.

I thought about that first line in of the error screen - "corrupted module?"

Got out the original Porteus 2.0 rc2 CD I had burnt and started it up. Used a terminal to overwrite the base modules of Porteus on the thumb drive.

Booted the problem thumb drive using the "copy2ram" cheat code. No luck, same errors again.

On paper I started listing all the modules of /base, /modules/, and /optional. Upon doing this I noticed there was a total of 24 modules on paper. But, I remembered during boot up the screen showing 25 modules. I checked for hidden files/modules on the thumb drive.

I found a file named ".xzm" without the quotes. I deleted this file/module and everything worked normally afterwards.

I think the no-name .xzm module was created at the time of the hung file conversion the previous day when I quickly shutdown the computer. And I just wanted to share how one could possibly get these errors. I'm just lucky I can count to 25, and I feel really lucky finding this.

Sean

[fanthom]

hi sean,

suspecting that .xzm was treated as a "hidden" file thus never copied to RAM. i consider this as a bug and will fix for next release.

thanks for sharing

[brokenman]

This program hung or was very slow converting, and we ran out of time. I had to shut down the system in a hurry.

Somewhere during this hang, a module started to be created, hence the corrupt ".xzm" module.

Good on ya Sean for troubleshooting and finding the cause through trial and error.

Fanthom perhaps a quick size/file check after finding a hidden module would be useful (if you are planning on loading hidden modules)? I don't imagine anyone would have tons of hidden modules so it wouldn't cause a slow down. Can't be sure but i would think this ".xzm" file had zero file size.

[fanthom]

@brokenman

thanks - i have fixed this issue already. we will allow hidden modules (if one has such wish then why not).

[sean]

@fanthom & brokenman,

.xzm file had zero bytes, I always check Properties to see what I might regain.

Sean