Three ways to solve the problem in antiX Linux "Critical error: failed to mount overlayfs" after remastering

December

2024

Three ways to solve the problem in antiX Linux "Critical error: failed to mount overlayfs" after remastering

Linux

26 December 2024 17:07

After remastering, when rebooting from a USB drive, the following error often appears: "Error: nount: mounting overlay on/live/aufs failed: No data available."
And then "Critical error. Failed to mount overlayfs." The solution to the problem - in three ways - is given in this article.

Remastered is the process of the user creating his own version of the antiX distribution, in the lunuxfs file of which all changes made to the rootfs, such as updated versions of packages and additional applications installed by the user, are transferred.
Reducing rootfs reduces the amount of RAM used and speeds up subsequent OS boot times and is generally a useful operation.

But remastering is a risky operation:

You may run out of space on the flash drive (at least 2.5 GB of free space is required to receive a new linuxfs file).
after remastering, it happens that the OS does not load - this article is about that. The solution to the problem is not at all difficult.

Symptoms of the problem

Error after remastering the operating system does not start with the error:

Critical error
Failed to mount overlayfs

Error: nount: mounting overlay on/live/aufs failed: No data available

Last 10 lines of the dmesg output:

random: dd: uninitialized urandom read (1 bytes read)

squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher

EXT4-fs (sdd1): re-mounted. Opts: (null)

EXT4-fs (sdd1): re-mounted. Opts: (null)

EXT4-fs (sdd1): re-mounted. Opts: (null)

EXT4-fs (loop1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)

overlayfs: "xino" feature enabled using 2 upper inode bits.

overlayfs: failed to verify index (index/00fb1d0001000000000000000000000000000000 000230a0000000000000, ftype=8000, err=-61)

overlayfs: failed index dir cleanup (-61)

overlayfs: try deleting index dir or mounting with '-o index=off' to disable ino des index.

Kernel: 5.10.224-antix.1-amd64-smp

Critical error

Failed to mount overlayfs

p = turn off

r- reboot

Select p or r then press

Solution #1 - using the grub menu

In the grub menu, press "e" and add the following text to the line:

overlay.index=0 grubsave

Then press F10 to continue loading the OS.

Solution No. 2 - removing rootfs from a USB drive

You can connect a bootable USB flash drive to a running PC running Linux and delete the rootfs file in the Antix folder.
For this I used the commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nemo
sudo nemo

After that, I opened the disk (when a USB Flash is connected, it is mounted automatically) and found where the rootfs file is located. Using the root user in the Terminal, I went to /media/username and deleted the rootfs file from the flash drive.

Solution No. 3 - using the research menu for setting up the “live” antiX system

1) Load antiX from a flash drive, but select save mode persist_home(home folder only).

2) Run the antiX "Save Settings" program, in which open "Research Menu" and select "Save Device"
which will open with root rights in Explorer.

3) In the Explorer window, delete the rootfs file. (It will be created again the first time you run it with persist_all or persist_root).

Reason for the error

Apparently, after remastering the question "Create a new rootfs.new (for remastering)" you need to answer "No".
Also, I assume that after remastering it is better to delete the rootfs file on the “live-USB” device, as written in Solution Option No. 3.
The rootfs file will be created the next time you start the OS from a bootable Live USB, where the program asks - rootfs was not found and for persistence to create automatically or manually. (Since the message encoding in the terminal is unclear, it is better to temporarily enable English in the initial menu).

Solution source #1:

https://www.forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=82455

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