14.04 Dpkg Found kernel: /memtest86+.bin issue (freeze during update-grub)

Question

Hopefully I'm not violating any rules by opening new topic for the issue I've encountered. Trust me, I've tried browsing all over askubuntu and bunch of other sites, but none of offered solutions have worked for me so far - hopefully you guys can help me solve the problem.

Earlier today I ran upgrade of my Ubuntu server to 14.04:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release:        14.04
Codename:       trusty

I'm having the following problem:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem. 

If I run the command, its gets stuck at: Found kernel: /memtest86+.bin

Please advise how to proceed (I've tried multiple solutions including update-grub, and plenty others, but none worked).

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.103ubuntu4) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
Setting up mdadm (3.2.5-5ubuntu4) ...
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
dpkg: error processing package mdadm (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mdadm

After restarting my pc and running sudo dpkg --configure -a, I'm back to the original issue:

Setting up mdadm (3.2.5-5ubuntu4) ...
 Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/mdadm-raid ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
update-grub is /usr/sbin/update-grub
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... found: /boot/grub/default
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ... found: /boot/grub/menu.lst
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-3.2.0-61-generic
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-3.2.0-48-generic
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-server
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-server
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-2.6.27-14-server
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-2.6.24-24-server
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-2.6.22-16-server
Found kernel: /vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-server
Found kernel: /memtest86+.bin

Uname -r returns

3.13.0-24-generic

After a lot of trouble, solved by dpkg --audit and then dpkg --configure <packagename> for packages listed

Solution 1

This problem can happen in the case of Hyper-V virtualization (Happened to me today).

In this case the answer is to disable OS-probbing in grub by opening the configuration file :

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

And adding the line :

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true

After saving your changes to /etc/default/grub, rebuild grub (running on Windows 10 Hyper-V with Ubuntu 15.04 VM):

sudo update-grub

and then apt-get update or whatev:

sudo apt-get update

Solution 2

After a lot of trouble, solved by

dpkg --audit 
# and then 
dpkg --configure
# for packages listed 

Solution 3

My issue was that I had Ubuntu installed on a Hyper-V VM and I had Enable Dynamic Memory checked (which is default). As soon as I turned it off I no longer had the issue.

Comments

[David Foerster]

@SalizarMarxx: Please don't leave "thank you" comments. Instead, vote for the answer if you like it.

[ortang]

Had the same problem on KVM, this solved the problem.

[Laryx Decidua]

Had the same problem with an OpenStack VM, the solution worked nicely there as well.

[d9k]

Why didn't grub developer just add timeout for os probing which would print this advice?..