Arch Linux

LHP22

Member

Registered: 2019-10-08

Posts: 13

Despite "nofail", it happens the boot loops forever

Hello!

Yesterday, I have added a line in my /etc/fstab so that it knows the usb stick i'm using the most with it and i can mount it with "mount -a". As I have to use it between my archlinux laptop and a bunch of windows, I use fat32 fs on it. Here's the line :

UUID=803D-F3A1 /mnt/cleusb vfat defaults,noatime,nofail,uid=louis,gid=louis,umask=077,x-systemd.device-timeout=1 0 0

Despite the nofail and the timeout at 1s, it happens that, at boot, the line error followed by the timeout appears twice followed by a forever loading and I have to shutdown manually the computer. After some restarts, it finally loads without problem with a normal time out.

As I havn't played with black magic in some times, I don't remember how one investigates such problem anymore. How do I do that?

Thank you!

Last edited by LHP22 (2026-08-19 09:51:48)

just4arch

Member

Registered: 2023-01-07

Posts: 130

Re: Despite "nofail", it happens the boot loops forever

At least I'd add `noauto` and depending on you usecase `x-systemd.automount`.

LHP22

Member

Registered: 2019-10-08

Posts: 13

Re: Despite "nofail", it happens the boot loops forever

I've read that "noauto" would prevent my usb from being mounted when running "mount -a"? Or is it only blocked during boot?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,743

Re: Despite "nofail", it happens the boot loops forever

https://man.archlinux.org/man/fstab.5#T … s%3C/i%3E).

it happens that, at boot, the line error followed by the timeout appears twice followed by a forever loading […] After some restarts, it finally loads without problem

Can you reboot out of this w/ frenetically pressing ctrl+alt+del or https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Keyboa … el_(SysRq) + REISUB or get the *exact* error messages by other means (phone. camera. makeshift tripod with two books: -\_)

Because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

so that it knows the usb stick i'm using the most with it and i can mount it with "mount -a"

What exactly is the plan here? Why do you want to mount anything w/ "mount -a" on the system?
A "noauto,user" entry will still allow an unprivileged mount and typically you just want to use udisks or https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab# … th_systemd the drive on path access

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