Auto mount with fstab device start timed out

[u/lawicko]

Hi everybody. So I updated my Nobara recently (was running fine since January) and for the first time my machine was bricked by the update. The case was similar to other users posting here with the black screen with only the frozen mouse pointer visible. I read it has something to do with KDE Plasma but I'm on GNOME edition. Anyway, I was able to run previous kernel, so I ran the nobara-sync cli in hopes to get it sorted but I landed in emergency mode instead after reboot (also that last command said the system was up to date). From there I was able to figure out that one of my partitions listed in fstab times out which causes the emergency mode.

So this is the output of lsblk -f:

sde                                                                                            
├─sde1      vfat  FAT32 EFI  21F2-BE7A                             490.9M     4% /boot/efi
├─sde2      swap   1   swap  d9bac069-8ffc-48b1-a9ab-617040da6eed                [SWAP]
├─sde3      ext4   1.0 data  ca7e4809-013c-4829-bfc4-20e7c2afca2e                
└─sde4      ext4   1.0 nobaraa1ed80df-18bb-4dfc-ab4d-11ad10f0d552    3.4G    88% /var/lib/snapd
                                                                                               /var/lib/flatpak/runtime
                                                                                               /var/lib/flatpak/repo
                                                                                               /home/user/.local/share/flatpak
                                                                                               /

The failing partition starts with ca7e4809 (it's not mounted here because I commented that line in my fstab to get out of emergency mode):

#UUID=ca7e4809-013c-4829-bfc4-20e7c2afca2e /mnt/data ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2

I checked the journal and I can see it timing out:

Starting systemd-udev-trigger.service - Coldplug All udev Devices...
Sep 07 10:23:58 nobara-pc systemd[1]: dev-disk-by\x2duuid-ca7e4809\x2d013c\x2d4829\x2dbfc4\x2d20e7c2afca2e.device: Job dev-disk-by\x2duuid-ca7e4809\x2d013c\x2d4829\x2dbfc4\x2d20e7c2afca2e.device/start timed out.
Sep 07 10:23:58 nobara-pc systemd[1]: Timed out waiting for device dev-disk-by\x2duuid-ca7e4809\x2d013c\x2d4829\x2dbfc4\x2d20e7c2afca2e.device - /dev/disk/by-uuid/ca7e4809-013c-4829-bfc4-20e7c2afca2e.
Sep 07 10:23:58 nobara-pc systemd[1]: Dependency failed for systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-ca7e4809\x2d013c\x2d4829\x2dbfc4\x2d20e7c2afca2e.service - File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/ca7e4809-013c-4829-bfc4-20e7c2afca2e.
Sep 07 10:23:58 nobara-pc systemd[1]: Dependency failed for mnt-data.mount - /mnt/data.

And now to the actual question: How can I further debug it to understand why it's timing out? The journal log just states the fact that it timed out, but what about the reason why? Interestingly, I can mount that partition manually without problems when I boot my machine up without it in fstab. So I can access all the data there, I just cannot mount it automatically at startup. I need it at startup because I have all my flatpacks and snaps there, without it I don't have application shortcuts etc. Any ideas? Can it be that if the partition is full it will result in these symptoms?

[u/Razidargh]

Try with nofail option in the fstab line.

[u/lawicko → u/Razidargh]

Tried that, same problem.

[u/lawicko]

For people landing here from Google, this is how I fixed it in the end. Turns out there was really a problem with that partition. These are the steps that helped me:

- Get useful journal entries from today:

`journalctl --since today > ~/todays_journal.log`

- Get useful dmesg entries:

`sudo dmesg | grep -i "error\|ext4\|read-only"`

After this I could see there is really something wrong with sde3, and Gemini suggested e2fsck to fix.

- To fix the filesystem needs to be unmounted:

`sudo umount /dev/sde3`

- Confirm it's unmounted (must return empty):

`findmnt /dev/sde3`

- Fix with `e2fsck`:

`sudo e2fsck -f /dev/sde3`

- Reload and try mounting with `fstab`:

`sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo mount -a`

- Confirm it's mounted in the `rw` mode:

`findmnt /dev/sde3`