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Revision as of 15:25, 11 December 2014 by Zbyszek (talk | contribs) (→‎Upgrade issues: add Fedup copies the whole journal during upgrade)

This page documents common bugs in Fedora 21 and, if available, fixes or workarounds for these problems. If you find your problem in this page, please do not file a bug for it, unless otherwise instructed. Where appropriate, a reference to the current bug(s) in Bugzilla is included.

Release Notes

Read the Fedora 21 release announcement and the Fedora 21 release notes for specific information about changes in Fedora 21 and other general information.


My bug is not listed

Not every bug is listed in this page, but Bugzilla should be a comprehensive database of known bugs. This page is a sampling of the bugs most commonly discussed on our mailing lists and forums.

To see if your bug has already been reported, you can search Bugzilla. If it has not yet been reported, we encourage you to do so to help improve Fedora for yourself and others. A guide to Bugs and feature requests has been prepared to assist you.

If you believe an already-reported bug report should be added to this page because it is commonly encountered, you can:

  • Add it yourself, if you have wiki access. Common bugs instructions provides guidance on how to add an entry to the page correctly, but the most important thing is to make sure that the bug is listed - don't worry if you don't get the format quite right, we can clean it up later.
  • Or, add the CommonBugs keyword to the bug report. Someone from the QA team will then inspect the issue to determine whether the bug should be listed as a common bug. To expedite your request, please add a comment to the bug that includes
    1. a summary of the problem
    2. any known workarounds
    3. an assessment on the impact to Fedora users

For reference, you can query Bugzilla for bugs tagged CommonBugs:

  • CommonBugs? (bugs with CommonBugs keyword, but do not yet have a link to this page)
  • CommonBugs+(bugs with CommonBugs keyword and contain a link to this page)

Installation issues

Cannot place bootloader target partition (e.g. /boot/efi) on a disk other than the first in custom partitioning

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1168118

You may encounter this bug when doing custom partitioning with more than one disk, and installing on a system whose firmware requires a partition as the location for the bootloader stage1 - e.g. /boot/efi for UEFI systems, /boot/uboot for some ARM systems, or a PReP boot partition for PowerPC systems.

If you attempt to create the partition on a disk other than the first (which will be the disk shown furthest to the left on the disk selection screen), the installer may complain that a valid bootloader partition has not been created.

A simple way to work around this is to place the boot partition on the first disk, if this is not inconvenient or impossible for your desired layout.

If you do want or need the boot partition to be on a later disk, you can work around the error. To do this, configure the desired layout, and complete custom partitioning despite the error message (by clicking Done twice). Go back into the Installation Destination screen, and click Full disk summary and bootloader.... Select the disk on which you placed the boot partition, and click Set as Boot Device. Click Close, then click Done, and click Done again on the custom partitioning screen without changing anything. This should clear the error condition and cause the installer to be happy with the boot partition being on the chosen disk.

Note that selecting the desired 'boot disk' before entering custom partitioning and creating your layout will not work (though it ought to - the fact that it does not is a related bug). You must use this slightly more unusual workaround instead. We do apologize for the inconvenience.

An installer updates image which fixes this bug is also available at https://adamwill.fedorapeople.org/updates/updates-1168118.img .

All initramfs files in shared /boot re-generated during install

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1074358

If you use a /boot partition shared with another installation of Fedora or any other Linux distribution, the Fedora 21 installation process will likely attempt to re-generate all the initramfs files present on the partition. In some cases, the re-generated initramfs files may not work correctly.

Due to the issue we would strongly advise against the use of shared /boot partitions with Fedora 21. If you do wish to use one, we would recommend you back up all its contents before installing Fedora 21, so that you can recover from any issues caused by the installation process.

Various issues caused by multiple trips through Installation Destination (partitions re-ordered on Reclaim Space screen, crash during install)

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1158975 - Bugzilla: #1166598

Some circumstances have been discovered in Fedora 21 testing where multiple trips through the Installation Destination installer spoke can cause problems. One known case involves various scenarios where you select different sets of disks as install targets on multiple trips, and visit the Reclaim space screen each time. Sometimes, when doing this, partitions will be displayed in a different order on the Reclaim space screen. In some particular circumstances, the attributes of different partitions - their numbers and sizes - may be confused. In this case, we would recommend rebooting and restarting the installation process to avoid any possibility of inadvertently deleting or resizing the wrong partition.

Bug #1158975 reports two or three cases where multiple trips through Installation Destination and Reclaim space resulted in the installation process crashing during the partitioning phase.

In general we would recommend you try to avoid too many trips through the Installation Destination spoke. If you do run into either problem, retrying the installation without multiple trips through the spoke should result in a successful installation.

The installer development team is investigating various possible approaches to reducing the likelihood of the installer being confused by complex cases such as this for future releases.

Cannot leave custom partitioning screen by clicking Done

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1167014

In some unusual situations, you may find that you seem to be unable to leave the installer's custom partitioning screen by clicking the Done button. If you find yourself in this situation, clicking the Update settings button on the right hand side of the screen should resolve the issue, allowing you to leave the next time you click Done.

This bug happens when the Done button does not refresh the screen's state in the same way as the Update settings button does (which it is intended to do), and then the installer refuses to leave the screen because the state is not consistent.

Network install image offers all package groups

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1134524

This is no longer considered a bug, exactly, but remains documented here for clarity. Initial Fedora 21 plans envisaged Server and Workstation releases each having their own network install images which, by default, would offer only the package groups relevant to that Product. However, it became clear that this design was difficult to implement and not really particularly desired by anyone.

For Fedora 21 Final, there will be a single designated network install image, built from the Server tree, which defaults to the Fedora Server package set but allows installation of all package groups. In practical terms it is little different from the network install image shipped with Fedora 20 and earlier except that it defaults to the Server package group rather than the GNOME desktop, and has Server visual branding. Despite this branding, in practice it is a universal network install image allowing deployment of all Fedora package sets. It can be used for doing network installs of the Workstation product in cases where this is preferable to installing from the live image (e.g. mass deployments).

32-bit Server DVD and network install images use generic installer artwork

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1170582

The 32-bit Server DVD and network install images use the generic installer artwork (down the side or across the top of the various screens) which simply uses the Fedora logo, rather than the Server product logo seen on the 64-bit versions of the same media. This is an entirely cosmetic issue, and the images are clearly identified as Server in various text labels.

Upgrade issues

Downloading failed: Didn't install any keys

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1066044

If you have enabled any third party repositories that are not included with the default installation of Fedora, you may run into this issue. If you did not import the GPG key for a particular repository after you installed it, fedup will fail because it does not have the necessary keys imported.

A quick and easy way to fix this is to just reinstall the repository package. You can use the command su -c 'yum reinstall packagename' to reinstall the package. When it prompts you to import the key, press y, and afterwards, try running the fedup tool again.

Firewall configuration overwritten on upgrade to Server or Workstation

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1172862

If you pass --product server or --product workstation to fedup when upgrading, the Package-x-generic-16.pngfirewalld-config-server or Package-x-generic-16.pngfirewalld-config-workstation package will be installed. These contain the default firewall configurations for those Products. Unfortunately, these default configurations will replace - rather than merging with - your existing configuration, including any changes you have made to the defaults.

The Cloud product and "nonproduct" use the Package-x-generic-16.pngfirewalld-config-standard package, which specifies no actual ports or services, and so existing configurations aren't replaced when fedup is run with --product nonproduct or --product cloud.

If you do want your upgraded system to be Fedora Workstation or Fedora Server, but you wish to maintain your firewall configuration modifications, you should note your existing configuration before the upgrade, and re-apply it with firewall-cmd or firewall-config after the upgrade process. We apologize for the inconvenience, and if possible we will release an update to resolve this issue for future upgrades.

FreeIPA configuration upgrade required after fedup

link to this item

If you upgrade a system running as a FreeIPA server to Fedora 21 using fedup, FreeIPA will not be able to entirely complete its configuration updates during the upgrade process. As explained in the FreeIPA release notes, you must run su -c 'ipa-ldap-updater --upgrade' followed by su -c 'ipa-upgradeconfig' after booting the upgraded system. Until you complete the update in this way, various elements of FreeIPA will not work correctly (including the web interface), and there will be error messages in the system logs.

Fedup copies the whole journal during upgrade

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1161366

After the upgrade is finished, fedup appends a copy of the whole journal to /sysroot/var/log/upgrade.log, instead of limiting that to just the current boot during which upgrade was run. This step will be slow on systems which have a large number of existing journal files. If you have a rotational drive, are low on disk space, and don't care about old logs, you might want to consider removing old journal files with

su -c bash -c 'rm -v /var/log/journal/*/*@*.journal*'

GNOME issues

GNOME Initial Setup crashes if no keyboard is selected

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1154171

On first use of a Fedora 21 Workstation system (or other Fedora 21 installation with the GNOME desktop), an 'initial setup' process is run (the same as described in the previous issue). One of the early stages asks you to pick a keyboard layout. Depending on your earlier choice of language and location, it is possible that no layout will be pre-selected on the initial list of layout choices. If no layout is selected, and you do not select one but simply click Next, the initial setup tool will crash.

The workaround for this issue is to make sure you select a keyboard layout. If none of the layouts is the one you want, clicking the '...' choice at the bottom of the list will cause the full list of layouts to be provided.

KDE issues

Default KDE session after installation or on re-login to live session is failsafe

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1164783

Idea.png
Update available for testing
A candidate fix for this issue has been submitted to the updates-testing repository for testing. Users experiencing this problem are encouraged to test this update and report to Bodhi whether it solves the problem. To test the update, run this command: sudo dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update --advisory=FEDORA-2014-16304

Due to an issue with how the sddm session manager orders desktop sessions, the failsafe session - "KDE Plasma (failsafe)" - will be the default session for interactive logins. This means that after installing Fedora 21 KDE in any way, or if you log out from a live session and log in again through the login screen, the default session choice will be the failsafe session. However, the session used on initial boot of the live image is not affected.

To work around this issue, simply select the "KDE Plasma Workspace" session instead of "KDE Plasma (failsafe)" when you log in to KDE. You should only need to make this choice once for each user account - when you select a session, that session is stored as that user's default choice, so subsequent logins with that user will use the same session until you choose another.

Crash when adding new widget to panel via drag-and-drop

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1170535

You may encounter a crash in the Plasma Desktop Shell while adding a widget to the panel. If you open the 'Add widgets...' panel pop-up and try to drag a new widget from it to the panel, if you cross the button for a running application in the task manager widget while dragging, the crash will be triggered. The shell will respawn automatically and the session will continue to work correctly.

To work around this issue simply be careful not to cross the task manager area of the panel when dragging. The Fedora KDE team will work to come up with a fix for this issue as soon as possible.

Graphical package manager missing some PackageKit features

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1098735

In Fedora 21 Beta, Package-x-generic-16.pngapper (KDE's default graphical package manager and update tool) is missing some features, due to the replacement of the backend it previously used. Notably the ability to search within package groups is missing.

A source code fix has been submitted to the PackageKit project. As a result, updated Package-x-generic-16.pngPackageKit packages resolving this issue should become available for testing shortly.

Network issues

IP address discovery via DHCP does not work

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1154200

Several users have reported that Fedora 21 does not successfully discover an IP address via DHCP on their systems. An investigation of this issue has indicated that badly-behaving routers are the source of the problem, but some commonly-used router hardware and software appear to have the problematic behaviour by default. This at least appears to affect systems connected to Cisco RV320 routers, and possibly Windows Server systems acting as network routers. The issue may be more likely to occur in cases where the router is configured to assign specific IP addresses to specific systems based on their MAC addresses.

To work around the issue, create a file /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf with the contents:

send dhcp-client-identifier = hardware;

or add that line to the file, if it already exists, and then try establishing the network connection again.

We will attempt to find a way in which Fedora can cope with these problematic router configurations and provide an update to address this issue as soon as possible.

Hardware issues

Boot hangs when using NVIDIA discrete graphics on some Thinkpad models (W530)

link to this item - Bugzilla: #752613

This issue has been present since at least Fedora 19.

Multiple testers have reported that various Thinkpad models - including at least the W530, and likely the W520 and T420 - that have hybrid Intel/NVIDIA graphics will fail to boot Fedora 19, 20, or 21 when using the discrete NVIDIA graphics adapter. Using the onboard Intel adapter, Fedora will boot successfully.

Further testing indicates that this bug is an interaction between several features of these systems and of Fedora: the VT-d advanced virtualization feature, the X2APIC level APIC, and the NVIDIA adapter. If all three of these things are used together, boot fails. If any one is removed from the equation, boot succeeds.

So, if you are affected by this bug, you can choose to boot with any two of those things, but not all three together. You can disable the VT-d feature and select which graphics adapter to use through the system firmware. You can disable X2APIC functionality by passing the kernel parameter nox2apic. In this way, you should be able to determine which of the features you want to use.

The kernel developers plan to address this issue in a future kernel update by blacklisting X2APIC functionality on affected systems, when the NVIDIA adapter is in use.

ARM issues

Fedora Server issues

Rolekit fails to deploy a Domain Controller on a VM, returning error 256

link to this item

Creation of a Domain Controller role requires the system to have a sufficient amount of entropy available to securely create the keys for the included certificate authority and Kerberos key distribution center. It is very common when deploying on a virtual machine that has just been created that there will not be sufficient entropy available, which will result in the Domain Controller deployment timing out waiting on /dev/random and then failing with error code 256.

On VM hosts that support it (such as KVM on Fedora 20 and 21), it is recommended to create the VM using the virt-RNG device (which the Fedora Server 21 guest will automatically detect). This will allow it to collect entropy from the host machine and should reduce the likelihood of encountering this issue. As a workaround (if you do not have a host capable of providing entropy), you can also run su -c '/usr/sbin/rngd -r /dev/urandom' to make the system use the less-secure /dev/urandom entropy device.

FreeIPA startup fails due to timing issues

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1071356

This bug appears to occur only occasionally. Sometimes, startup of a FreeIPA server - ipa.service - may fail, apparently due to some kind of race / timing issue between it, named.service and dirsrv.target. It does appear to happen only rarely, and when it happens, just starting ipa.service again should succeed.

Other issues

Installation of 'environment groups' fails due to conflicts between fedora-release packages

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1160917

Due to some limitations in how Fedora's package group mechanism works and some changes made to support the introduction of "Products" in Fedora 21, you may often encounter conflicts when trying to install the 'environment groups' seen in yum grouplist after installing Fedora 21. If you install a Fedora Product - Workstation, Cloud, or Server - it is likely that attempting to install any other 'environment group' will fail. If you use a non-Product install - for instance, install from a desktop live image - it is likely that you will be able to successfully install other non-Product environment groups, but not the environment groups associated with each Product.

The most common case in which you're likely to encounter this is trying to add extra desktops to a Workstation or other desktop installation. If you install Workstation and then want to add any other desktop, or install another desktop and then want to add GNOME and decide to try and use the 'Workstation' group, you will likely run into this problem.

Fortunately there is a fairly simple workaround for this problem: just add --exclude fedora-release\* to your command, e.g. yum groupinstall kde-desktop-environment --exclude fedora-release\*.

It may not be possible to resolve this fully for Fedora 21. The bug report contains the detailed explanation of the problem, and solutions for it will likely be discussed there, if you wish to keep up to date.

Rendering problems of Assamese and Bengali language content

link to this item - Bugzilla: #1170135

Idea.png
Update available for testing
A candidate fix for this issue has been submitted to the updates-testing repository for testing. Users experiencing this problem are encouraged to test this update and report to Bodhi whether it solves the problem. To test the update, run this command: sudo dnf --enablerepo=updates-testing update --advisory=FEDORA-2014-16196

A rendering issue was found in Lohit Assamese and Bengali last upstream release 2.91.0. Due to this issue conjucts break if followed by any Bengali matra. Unfortunately this got detected during the final phase of Fedora 21 release.

Anyone creating or viewing Assamese or Bengali language content in Fedora will encounter this issue.