After the Neon updater hosed my system (as documented here: Upgrade to 22.04 breaks Neon, can't boot), I wiped the partition and attempted a whole fresh reinstall. However, the installer doesn’t seem to work properly if full disk encryption is used. Repro:
Download the ISO (20240201-0717), copy to USB & boot live
Once booted, connect to wifi & launch the installer
On the Partitions step, choose “Manual Partitioning”:
Select free space->Create. File System=btrfs, Encrypt=checked, Mount Point=/
As it’s a multi-boot system, I have an existing fat32 efi partition. Select that partition->Edit. Set its mount point to /boot/efi.
Proceed with the install
Reboot.
Result: It prompts for the password, accepts the password, shows the Grub menu, I select Neon, then it fails to boot. The error is cryptsetup: ERROR luks-(uuid): maximum number of tries exceeded. If I hit a key to show the text, it reveals:
/bin/cat: /crypto_keyfile.bin: No such file or directory
Nothing to read on input.
cryptsetup: ERROR: luks-(uuid): cryptsetup failed, bad password or options?
(...repeating over and over until it gives up & drops to shell)
This was the exact install process that worked properly with the previous version of Neon (20.04). Just to sanity check my steps, I went back & fully reinstalled the 20220324-0945 ISO. It worked without issue. So this definitely seems to be a regression.
After some googling, I found threads that say the current installer is broken only with encryption & btrfs, so I tried to repeat the process using ext4 rather than btrfs. The same error occurred.
I also tried choosing “Replace a partition” rather than “Manual Partitioning.” I gave it the partition I intended to use as “/” (aka I didn’t explicitly give it /boot/efi). Same issue.
I tried doing the same, but not selecting encryption (not an option for real-world use, but just out of curiosity). That worked.
So it seems to be unable to install with encryption.
I’ve tried all the suggested steps on that reddit, but can’t seem to get a fresh install working. Any help would be appreciated, as I’m hoping after a full day lost, I won’t be stuck just having to reinstall the same old 20.04 version I’d been using prior to trying to upgrade.
Exactly the same problem; I actually went through non-encrypted install just to make sure it was only encryption breaking the boot up. That was with today’s 0304-2101.
Same problem here.
Fresh install neon-user-20240304-2101 (in virtualbox) ,
it works perfectly If i don’t use encryption . with encryption it gets stuck (see pic) .
it successfully unlocks the encrypted partition at boot (decrypting master key… slot 0 opened) , but it fails before getting to the user login screen.
I’m running into the same problem on a clean install. Will it be feasible to encrypt the drive later on, or should I plan to need to reinstall again later when this is fixed?
Uhm, just as feedback, I was able to install Neon with encryption just fine not long ago. I think I used neon-user-20240229-0716.iso.
I don’t really think it should be the case… But could it be that you are using any input from numpad? I ask so, because in my system I find the behaviour of having the numlock disabled every time I boot my system uncommon (need to check further about that, if this one is just a minor problem of mine).
Don’t eat me alive if I said something dumb, because I probably I did!
I Just don’t know why it worked for me, and I can’t think of anything better than that.
@MaxCube128 Hello I’m not typing the password incorrectly, infact slot 0 opens just fine when booting (see pic). After that I get the Neon loading screen with the cryptsetup error that I posted previously.
I would have posted more screenshots but new users are limited to 1 only.
I tried both neon-user-20240307-0714 and neon-user-20240304-2101. Same problem just like user John_Friedson reported.
I can just wait for the next neon iso release , maybe they’ll have fixed it by then. I got lucky I always test new installation isos in virtualbox first, it saves me a lot of wasted time if things go bad.
Yes, my suggestion was kinda silly… I just wish I could help, because for some reason the encryption on my system works just fine. So, maybe there is a way to make it work…
I’ve the same problem on fresh install with neon-user-20240307-0714.iso…
I’ve setted encryption during install setup, but when the VM is restarted obtain this error…
I don’t think it’s a keyboard problem (even though I set up an Italian keyboard) because the password I chose would be no different on an American keyboard…
Hey, this is how I do a full disk encryption (except efi and boot of course,(working for years now on Neon):
To set up an encrypted Luks LVM on GPT with UEFI I had to do following:
Boot neon installer via EFI
create /boot, create LUKS manually
pvcreate and vgcreate a device in LUKS-Volume
partition manually on the created device
keep a file open on one of these drives (because calamares unmounts and closes drives and devices on install - regression)
don’t format /boot/efi but use it
/, /home or whatever else is kept in the created devices - just /boot /boot/efi stay out of it.
no chroot or something like that should be necessary
I’m using Neon since day one, and unfortunately only once this luks-setup installed without quirks.
Can’t post a Link as a new member - but if you look for “system verschlüsseln ubuntu” you will find a german ubuntuusers page with further details.
You’ll need a translator for this page though.
Probably we can put instructions in english somewhere. I’m glad to help.
I suggest to create a separate home drive anyway - it makes reinstallation a lot easier.
I’m not typing the password incorrectly, infact slot 0 opens just fine when booting (see pic). After that I get the Neon loading screen with the cryptsetup error that I posted previously.
