Fails to boot into installation utility

I've got Bazzite installed onto a bootable USB drive, and when I attempt to boot into the installer I get a strange error and the utility fails. Was doing research to see if this is a common error, but I can't find anything on it. Wanted to see if someone is familiar with this and knows how to fix it?

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 9:26 AM

Have you tried reflashing the USB?

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 9:27 AM

Or better to ask: what are the things you already tried to fix it?

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 10:52 AM

Yeah, that was the first thing I tried. I thought that maybe something happened in the flashing process so I flashed again. Same problem. Triple checked some videos to make sure I didn't miss anything when it comes to flashing Bazzite, and looks like I went through the steps correctly.

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 10:53 AM

I will do a quick test on my other computer though just to eliminate the boot drive being an issue.

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 1:05 PM

This error is caused by some invalid utf8 characters in volume/partition labels, which python does not tolerate well.

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 1:05 PM

We've had a user like this before

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 1:06 PM

Anaconda (which is the installer that installs Bazzite, based on python) tries to read volume information but fails because of some utf-8 character encoding problem

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 1:07 PM

The only fix for this is to use something else to edit drive and volume/partition labels to standard English characters, such as GParted Live, and then load the Bazzite installer again.

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 3:20 PM

Are you talking about the name of the boot drive like this?

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 3:20 PM

That's the current name of the drive partition

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 3:20 PM

Would just reflashing the ISO again with a different name do the same?

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 3:21 PM

I just used Rufus, and that's the name it gave it by default

Ssonicnerd14 Are you talking about the name of the boot drive like this?

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 4:00 PM

No, the labels of your other drives

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 4:01 PM

Internal drives

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 4:01 PM

The boot drive is fine it only contains basic characters

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 4:16 PM

There are some non standard characters in the labels or other drive attributes that are causing the utf8 error

sonicnerd14OP•1/15/25, 4:21 PM

That's strange because they all seem to have normal names. So do I have to install this GParted Live onto another drive? Looks like an ISO, and I don't see an option for a .exe windows installer.

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:11 PM

Something about the attributes or name of your partitions or drive is causing python to puke out an encoding error.

It's 100% something with reading drive/partition/filesystem attributes and its character encoding.

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:14 PM

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:15 PM

@wolfyreload this user has same error but no unusual characters?

Ssonicnerd14 That's strange because they all seem to have normal names. So do I have to insta...

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:16 PM

Remember ANY attached drive, including other drives, external drives etc etc will be read and could potentially cause that issue

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:17 PM

It could also be any partition name, not just drive labels

CCheckYourFax @wolfyreload this user has same error but no unusual characters?

wolfyreload•1/15/25, 5:24 PM

Partition name can be completely different from the drive label. iirc the drive label doesn't affect the installer at all. Only weird characters in the partition name is an issue

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:40 PM

https://github.com/pyudev/pyudev/issues/490

GitHub

UnicodeDecodeError when reading GPT PartitionName · Issue #490 · py...

Hello, In Subiquity (the Ubuntu Server installer), we are using pyudev to list and retrieve information about the different devices that we can install on. We are iterating over all the properties ...

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:40 PM

This is probably related

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:41 PM

@wolfyreload

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 5:46 PM

Kernel bug with a fix that was never merged. So this isn't anaconda's fault after all.

CCheckYourFax Kernel bug with a fix that was never merged. So this isn't anaconda's fault afte...

wolfyreload•1/15/25, 5:56 PM

That's unusual. I usually blame anaconda for everything lol

Wwolfyreload That's unusual. I usually blame anaconda for everything lol 😂

CheckYourFax•1/15/25, 6:00 PM

Python is just overly strict on unicode stuff too

CCheckYourFax Click to see attachment

antheas•1/15/25, 6:09 PM

@Noel can you get somebody from anaconda on this

antheas•1/15/25, 6:09 PM

like come on really lol

Aantheas @Noel can you get somebody from anaconda on this

Noel•1/15/25, 6:11 PM

I mean, based on reading this, it's an issue in the Python spec itself on how it handles unicode.

Noel•1/15/25, 6:12 PM

What do you suggest the anaconda team does?

antheas•1/15/25, 6:12 PM

handle the exception?

antheas•1/15/25, 6:12 PM

use a different file type?

antheas•1/15/25, 6:13 PM

seems its a bug in pyudev

Noel•1/15/25, 6:14 PM

I can file something over to the team.

Noel•1/15/25, 6:18 PM

I put it in the #anaconda matrix room. I'll see if they want me to file something on Jira.

Aantheas seems its a bug in pyudev

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 2:19 AM

It's a kernel bug in how utf16 is parsed from gpt partition tables apparently

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 2:19 AM

But I'm not sure if that patch was ever merged

Aantheas handle the exception?

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 2:20 AM

https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/patch/e16bcbb5-c2fe-f168-410b-824358f0a48e@canonical.com/

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 2:21 AM

I'm not 100% sure if this is the same problem

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 2:23 AM

But I would be somewhat surprised if it isn't

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 3:05 AM

Yeah this shit was never merged:

So this means its probably better to fix it in pyudev

Noel•1/16/25, 3:05 AM

Neal recommended getting visability here too: https://github.com/storaged-project/blivet/issues

GitHub

Issues · storaged-project/blivet

A python module for configuration of block devices - Issues · storaged-project/blivet

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 3:07 AM

pyudev said "not our problem, fix upstream" and then it was never fixed upstream

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 3:38 AM

You could do a very simple fix by changing the code in pyudev to add errors="replace"errors="replace" that turns invalid characters into � characters.

Linus Xu•1/16/25, 4:46 AM

Or alternatively just gdiskgdisk your drives and change the problematic partition names

LLinus Xu Or alternatively just `gdisk` your drives and change the problematic partition n...

CheckYourFax•1/16/25, 4:49 AM

yes, but we were talking about long term solution for when the next user comes with the same issue. this is #2 already

Fails to boot into installation utility

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