Bug#707653: grub2-common: After Grub 2.00-14 upgrade, system failed to boot (rescue, old grub 1.99 still in mbr)

[Michael Musenbrock]

Package: grub2-common
Version: 2.00-14
Severity: critical
Justification: breaks the whole system

Hi,

after upgrading grub from version 1.99-27.1 -> 2.00-14 [1] the system
was not able to boot.

On reboot the grub rescue>' prompt was displayed.

After
 # grub rescue>  set prefix=(hdX,>)/boot/grub/grub2
 # grub rescue>  insmod normal
 # grub rescue>  normal
the normal grub prompt was back, and there was still version 1.99-27
installed.

After another reboot i did:
 # grub rescue>  set root=(hdX,Y)/boot 
 # grub rescue>  set prefix=(hdX,>)/boot/grub/grub2
 # grub rescue>  insmod part_msdos
 # grub rescue>  insmod ext2
 # grub rescue>  insmod linux
 # grub rescue>  linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.8-1-amd64 root=/dev/sdaX
 # grub rescue>  initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.8-1-amd64
 # grub rescue>  boot
so I was able to start the system.

After normal system start, I ran:
# grub-install /dev/sda
# update-grub

afterwards the system booted normally, grub was welcoming me now
with version 2.00.

It seems to me, that the grub-install, or whatever mechanism is used
internally to write the new grub, was not run on upgrade.

Regards,
Michael



[1] Grub related packages which got updated, no other grub packages installed.
 - grub-common:amd64 1.99-27.1 -> 2.00-14
 - grub-pc:amd64 1.99-27.1 -> 2.00-14
 - grub-pc-bin:amd64 1.99-27.1 -> 2.00-14
 - grub2-common:amd64 1.99-27.1 -> 2.00-14



-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers mike
  APT policy: (700, 'mike'), (500, 'unstable'), (102, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.8-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub2-common depends on:
ii  dpkg          1.16.10
ii  grub-common   2.00-14
ii  install-info  5.1.dfsg.1-3

grub2-common recommends no packages.

grub2-common suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information