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Q1derous

Member

Registered: 2025-03-01

Posts: 19

Encrypted Partition - Booting, File Access & Edit Issues [ SOLVED ]

Hey All,

Anybody here that is successfully using Veracrypt?

Having the following issues after encrypting a non-system, standard data partition / volume (as ext4) with Veracrypt (veracrypt-1.26.24-Debian-12-amd64.deb) and restoring data to it.
All smooth, no problems during that process.
1 - The system wants to boot into Maintenance Mode all the time (used a workaround in fstab - see below).
2 - Files can be accessed / opened and edited, but not saved.

Boot Issue
When booting / rebooting, it goes past GRUB, but then is unable to get to the normal login screen or desktop.
It gets stuck in between with a black screen and defaults into “emergency / maintenance mode”. The screen shows:

    Starting default target:
    [8919.852138] EXT4-fs (sda#): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
    You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type “journalctl -xb” to view
    system logs, “systemctl reboot” to reboot, “systemctl default” or “exit”
    to boot into default mode.
    Give root password for maintenance
    (or press Control-D to continue)

Pressing Control-D just loops / repeats itself.
So entered the password, then typed “startx” to finish booting to the desktop (unmodified / maint. mode version).
Check menus, all installed applications and data still there. Good.

Note, this also happened(s) when reformatting a partition with NTFS to restore files to it. (Later moved those and reformatted back to ext4)

So in Maint. Mode, go to /var/log/Xorg.0.log to look for errors.
These are the error lines that are probably / possibly pointing to the reason why it won't boot normally. About ~40 of these from 370.304 up to 740.413 (all the same):

    [ 370.304] (EE) dbus-core: error connecting to system bus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.FileNotFound
    (Failed to connect to socket /run/dbus/system_bus_socket: No such file or directory)

Looks like they're all re/ the same problem, something to do with dbus.
Looked that up, don't really understand it. Far as I know, dbus is what you take to dstore to spend dbig-bucks getting dgroceries.

Then noted the 2nd line above in the boot process re/ “VFS can't find the ext4 filesystem”
So, thinking it had to do with the initial reformatting to NTFS, went into /etc/fstab and #commented out the line with the NTFS partition.
Rebooted, and it worked, back into normal login and desktop mode again!
The NTFS partiton doesn't show up in the file manager, of course, But it does again when using GParted to mount it.

So, then the same thing happens when the partition was encrypted. Wouldn't boot normally.
Try it again. Go into Maint. Mode (the only access available), #comment out the line for that partition again in fstab, save, log out / exit, reboot and the system launches fine.
Use Veracrypt to mount the partition, and that works too.
The only thing is that, although this works and may be perfectly fine, it just seems like a “kind of hacky" workaround method.

Plus ... the Second Issue - File Edits
Files in another (non-encrypted data partition) don't have this issue.
Any files in the encrypted partition can be accessed, opened and worked on.
But try and save any edits and error messages pop up all over.
Depending on the program:

    Error
    /EncPartition/Path/file.odt
            (doesn't matter what file format - document, image, etc)
    - Write failed - is file blocked by a sync program?

    Error
    ... cannot save or create this file. Make sure that the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write-protected, or damaged.

Can't even create and save a new file:

    Error
    /EncPartition/Path/Test 2.odt does not exist.
    Click OK
    Error
    Error saving the document Untitled 1: Write Error: The file could not be written.

Thinking maybe it was a permissions issue. went into Krusader (root) > Properties > Permissions > Advanced Permissions, and Added the Named User (regular user) with rwx.
No joy, issue remains, no abitlity to create / save edits to files. And not sure what to try next.

Any suggestions how to boot back into normal mode again without having to comment out a line in fstab for encrypted (or NTFS formatted) partitions?
How to be able to create / open, edit, and SAVE files again?
(Neither here nor there, also noticed that Veracrypt doesn't seem to allow / provide a way of adding “labels” to partitions which were knocked out when encrypting.)

Last edited by Q1derous (Today 09:25)

Q1derous

Member

Registered: 2025-03-01

Posts: 19

Re: Encrypted Partition - Booting, File Access & Edit Issues [ SOLVED ]

Hmm, nothing but crickets and no takers on this one, eh? Oh well, no worries.

Problem solved (mostly) by uninstalling Vera (the “complete removal” option) and then reinstalled it. Eg. - the "when all else fails method".
All mounting and file editing and saving is working properly now.
Still need to have the partition commented out in /etc/fstab for reboots to avoid maintenance mode ... but that's fine I guess.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 5,034

Website

Re: Encrypted Partition - Booting, File Access & Edit Issues [ SOLVED ]

Thanks for letting us know.