failure to load "swap /swapfile" error after "/etc/fstab/" edit for NTFS steam games

[Jean-Nicholas]

I think I did everything that this thing has told me to do, to the best of my linux noobness, and when I did "sudo reboot" to apply the changes, that's when the swapfile error began.

Fortunately for me, I have a live CD and managed to save a copy of "fstab" after editing it, so I have a "clean" version of it for the UUIDs of my NTFS drives... that I think I forgot to have mount as "ntfs-3g" volumes.(and have not tried the troubleshoot fix as I no longer use a windows 10 install)

I've been poking in fstab repeatedly since, changing entries in hopes to fix the swapfile not loading error... to no success. So I started searching for a different way to fix this error, going so far as to recreate the swapfile in the recovery root command line... still no success.

 

I resigned myself to make a new linux boot on my new SSD with the intent of transfering whatever I can salvage if it's impossible to fix my issue... even though I'd prefer to continue using my currently borked linux install rather than starting all over.(that said, if there's a way for me to transfer snaps from one linux install to another for the same distro, that'd be an acceptable middle ground/compromise to have)

[Jean-Nicholas]

This is the error in question that I get on boot up, after GRUB.

[William Briot]

Hello,

 

I can see two different error :

- "Initramfs unpacking failed" -> Shouldn't block you for now

- "Failed to activate swap /swapfile" -> Can you show us your /etc/fstab (not the clean one) ?

Edited January 22, 2021 by William Briot

[Jean-Nicholas]

22 minutes ago, William Briot said:

Hello,

 

I can see two different error :

- "Initramfs unpacking failed" -> Shouldn't block you for now

- "Failed to activate swap /swapfile" -> Can you show us your /etc/fstab (not the clean one) ?

The first fstab is the one I edited out the changes I made in "f stab" to add the UUIDs for the two NTFS drives where my steam library is carried over from windows 10 after migration.

fstab f stab

[William Briot]

Why are you trying to mount /swapfile before / is mounted ?

 

Move that /swapfile to the bottom of the fstab.

 

Where is / by the way ? I can't see it

[Jean-Nicholas]

I legit don't know how the mount priority order got changed like that, I only added the two UUIDs at the bottom and nothing else... at least, I think that's all I did.

 

 

The top one is how my fstab is supposed to be like?

I'm rather clueless if this change is going to fix my problem, mainly because when I looking at my SSD Linux install for comparison, there's basically no difference between the two that I can see. I'm gonna commit the change from the recovery root command line and reboot to see what the result is.

[William Briot]

Here's a basic fstab for reference :

 

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sde1 during installation
UUID=1612f07a-04c3-4015-88f0-7aa10eed4e2b /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sde5 during installation
UUID=8f45bef7-0848-43b6-8c3b-a444cf35606b none            swap    sw              0       0

 

You should have an entry which mount point is /, but that's not the case in your fstab.

 

If / doesn't exist, then the system cannot find /swapfile.

 

There should be a line directly below the " # / was on /dev/nvme0n1p1 during installation "

 

Run

ls -lha /dev/disk/by-uuid

and check which uuid point to /dev/nvme0n1p1

Then add :

UUID=<The uuid you just got> /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

To your /etc/fstab (below the comment I mentionned above is good)

[Jean-Nicholas]

19 minutes ago, William Briot said:

Here's a basic fstab for reference :

 

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sde1 during installation
UUID=1612f07a-04c3-4015-88f0-7aa10eed4e2b /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sde5 during installation
UUID=8f45bef7-0848-43b6-8c3b-a444cf35606b none            swap    sw              0       0

 

You should have an entry which mount point is /, but that's not the case in your fstab.

 

If / doesn't exist, then the system cannot find /swapfile.

 

There should be a line directly below the " # / was on /dev/nvme0n1p1 during installation "

 

Run

ls -lha /dev/disk/by-uuid

and check which uuid point to /dev/nvme0n1p1

Then add :

UUID=<The uuid you just got> /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

To your /etc/fstab (below the comment I mentionned above is good)

That's the UUID for the EFI partition of my nvme drive.

Could I just copy the same line from my current Linux over to my broken fstab to fix the problem? Or is that something I don't want to do because it'll screw things up even further and I should just explicitly tell my system where to look for / instead?

[William Briot]

You need to put the correct uuid otherwise it won't work.

You can copy the same line from your current fstab but don't forget to replace the UUID otherwise it won't be any better.

 

 

[Jean-Nicholas]

So I can just copy/paste line 13 and 14 no problem then? Or best that I just type it out manually to avoid making my problem worse than it already is?

 

 

Sorry for all the questions, I want to make sure I don't do something that'll break more things than it fixes them. ^^;

[William Briot]

You can copy/paste line 13 but avoid the 14 as I can't see it in the fstab you gave before, it should be specific to the rescue/live cd

 

I just saw that I made a slight mistake, you need the UUID pointing to /dev/nvme0n1p2 (/) not /dev/nvme0n1p1 (/boot/efi). I'm tired okay

 

Don't forget to switch the UUID on the line you just copy/pasted with the one for /dev/nvme0n1p2.

 

It's 2am for me, so I'm going to sleep, I'll continue to help you tomorrow if you still need it (My discord is on my profile if you want to keep me updated).

[Jean-Nicholas]

It's rather late for me as well, so I'll commit to this tomorrow and let you know over discord what happens in real time. 

 

Sleep well.

[Jean-Nicholas]

It worked! I'm writing this from my nvme installed Linux, and want to say thanks a lot to @William Briot for walking me through my dumb mistake and get me running again effortlessly.

 

Now, to redo the automounting of my drives, while being careful of what I'm doing if I poke at fstab again.