Syslinux - Mar 2013 - Syslinux 5.10pre1 - Failed to load COM32 file .c32

Hello everyone,

Since I have some some adventures in UEFI PXE booting ahead I tried to 
go with the latest syslinux development snapshot in this case 5.10pre1. 
But I already fail when booting from CD with

    Failed to load COM32 file .c32

I am a bit perplex since no name of COM32 files is given. I am trying to 
trace down the issue as good as I can. COM32 files present are:

boot/isolinux/chain.c32
boot/isolinux/ifcpu.c32
boot/isolinux/ifcpu64.c32
boot/isolinux/ldlinux.c32
boot/isolinux/libcom32.c32
boot/isolinux/libgpl.c32
boot/isolinux/liblua.c32
boot/isolinux/libmenu.c32
boot/isolinux/libutil.c32
boot/isolinux/menu.c32
boot/isolinux/reboot.c32
boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32

Every build gets fresh COM32 files and an isolinux.bin from the same 
syslinux version. The isolinux.cfg calls ifcpu64.c32 to select either a 
64 bit kernel, a PAE enabled kernel or a kernel without PAE. 
isolinux.cfg reads:

DEFAULT switch

LABEL switch
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/ifcpu64.c32
         APPEND sifomenu -- paemenu -- nopamenu

LABEL paemenu
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
         APPEND /boot/isolinux/common/paemenu.cfg

LABEL nopamenu
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
         APPEND /boot/isolinux/common/nopamenu.cfg

LABEL sifomenu
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
         APPEND /boot/isolinux/common/sifomenu.cfg

Manually calling the vesamenu.c32 COM32 at the boot prompt works with 
relative and absolute paths:

    boot: vesamenu.c32 common/sifomenu.c32
    boot: /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32 /boot/isolinux/common/sifomenu.c32

I am scratching my head, since calling

    boot: sifomenu

fails which indicates that isolinux itself does not find (or correctly 
interpretes) its isolinux.cfg. Syslinux was built with GCC 4.7.2 and 
NASM 2.10.7 - but the problem remains when using the .c32 files and 
isolinux.bin from the official release. 5.02pre3 (built with the same 
compilers) does not show this issue. There is no /isolinux directory, 
nor are there syslinux.cfg anywhere. Were there changed dependencies 
when moving from 5.02pre3 to 5.10pre1? The only added (binary) COM32 
seems to be cptime.c32, but this does not mean that there a no new 
dependencies on already present COM32 files.

Regards,
Mattias


-- 
Mattias Schlenker - Redaktion + EDV-Beratung + Linux-CD/DVD-Konzepte
Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Str. 3 - 40667 MEERBUSCH - GERMANY

Telefon (VoIP "ueberall"), geschaeftlich: +49 341 39290767
Telefon (Festnetz), privat und Fax:       +49 2132 9952906
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+49 341 39290767 verwenden, da ich diese aufs Mobiltelefon routen kann!

http://blog.rootserverexperiment.de/ http://news.mattiasschlenker.de/

> Hello everyone,
> 
> Since I have some some adventures in UEFI PXE booting ahead I tried to 
> go with the latest syslinux development snapshot in this case 5.10pre1. 
> But I already fail when booting from CD with
> 
>     Failed to load COM32 file .c32
> ...
I am only guessing here, but it is possible that your problem is 
related to a bug introduced after 5.02pre1 (see 
http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2013-February/019597.html ) which is 
not yet solved in 5.10pre1. I could, of course, be wrong.

Although the original bug report is about the CONFIG directive, in 
your isolinux.cfg file you also change to a new cfg file, located in 
a different directory, loading [vesa]menu.c32 again.

Although 5.02pre1 has its own issues too, I would suggest testing 
your isolinux.cfg with 5.02-pre1, at least to confirm whether the 
behavior is the same or not.

Note: Your isolinux.cfg will fail with 5.01 too (but not for the same 
reasons). That's why I suggest testing with 5.02-pre1.

HTH,
Ady.

On Wed, 2013-03-13 at 13:14 +0100, Mattias Schlenker
wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> Since I have some some adventures in UEFI PXE booting ahead I tried to 
> go with the latest syslinux development snapshot in this case 5.10pre1. 
> But I already fail when booting from CD with
> 
>     Failed to load COM32 file .c32
> 
> I am a bit perplex since no name of COM32 files is given. I am trying to 
> trace down the issue as good as I can. COM32 files present are:
> 
> boot/isolinux/chain.c32
> boot/isolinux/ifcpu.c32
> boot/isolinux/ifcpu64.c32
> boot/isolinux/ldlinux.c32
> boot/isolinux/libcom32.c32
> boot/isolinux/libgpl.c32
> boot/isolinux/liblua.c32
> boot/isolinux/libmenu.c32
> boot/isolinux/libutil.c32
> boot/isolinux/menu.c32
> boot/isolinux/reboot.c32
> boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
> 
> Every build gets fresh COM32 files and an isolinux.bin from the same 
> syslinux version. The isolinux.cfg calls ifcpu64.c32 to select either a 
> 64 bit kernel, a PAE enabled kernel or a kernel without PAE. 
> isolinux.cfg reads:
> 
> DEFAULT switch
> 
> LABEL switch
>          COM32 /boot/isolinux/ifcpu64.c32
>          APPEND sifomenu -- paemenu -- nopamenu
> 
> LABEL paemenu
>          COM32 /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
>          APPEND /boot/isolinux/common/paemenu.cfg
> 
> LABEL nopamenu
>          COM32 /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
>          APPEND /boot/isolinux/common/nopamenu.cfg
> 
> LABEL sifomenu
>          COM32 /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32
>          APPEND /boot/isolinux/common/sifomenu.cfg
> 
> Manually calling the vesamenu.c32 COM32 at the boot prompt works with 
> relative and absolute paths:
> 
>     boot: vesamenu.c32 common/sifomenu.c32
>     boot: /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32 /boot/isolinux/common/sifomenu.c32
> 
> I am scratching my head, since calling
> 
>     boot: sifomenu
> 
> fails which indicates that isolinux itself does not find (or correctly 
> interpretes) its isolinux.cfg. Syslinux was built with GCC 4.7.2 and 
> NASM 2.10.7 - but the problem remains when using the .c32 files and 
> isolinux.bin from the official release. 5.02pre3 (built with the same 
> compilers) does not show this issue. There is no /isolinux directory, 
> nor are there syslinux.cfg anywhere. Were there changed dependencies 
> when moving from 5.02pre3 to 5.10pre1? The only added (binary) COM32 
> seems to be cptime.c32, but this does not mean that there a no new 
> dependencies on already present COM32 files.
Thanks for the report. I've queued up the following patch and will push
a new prerelease early next week.

---
>From ba45539416c804ed65a129ae3fd07f585f6a61ff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Matt Fleming <matt.fleming at intel.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:32:52 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] ldlinux: Fixup lwip merge botch

The lwip merge changed the code for copying cmdline arguments from,

    strcpy(q, p);

to this,

    do {
	*q++ = ch = *p++;
    } while (ch);

which means 'p' no longer points at 'args'. Use 'args'
explicitly for
the case where we need to apply a filename extension, otherwise users
end up seeing errors like,

    Failed to load COM32 file .c32

Reported-by: Mattias Schlenker <ms at mattiasschlenker.de>
Signed-off-by: Matt Fleming <matt.fleming at intel.com>
---
 com32/elflink/ldlinux/execute.c | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/com32/elflink/ldlinux/execute.c b/com32/elflink/ldlinux/execute.c
index 49a0de5..bf0bd8c 100644
--- a/com32/elflink/ldlinux/execute.c
+++ b/com32/elflink/ldlinux/execute.c
@@ -101,6 +101,7 @@ __export void execute(const char *cmdline, uint32_t type,
bool sysappend)
 				 * filename extension if COM32 and
 				 * retry.
 				 */
+				p = args;
 				if (t->type == IMAGE_TYPE_COM32) {
 					p = apply_extension(p, ".c32");
 					if (!p)
-- 
1.7.11.7

-- 
Matt Fleming, Intel Open Source Technology Center

Hi everyone,

this is a follow up to:

http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2013-March/019666.html

Same config, same .c32 files are present, same directory structure. With 
5.10pre2 I get the error "Failed to load COM32 file ldlinux.c32". At 
least now I know which file cannot be loaded. But ldlinux.c32 is 
present! Should I try with isolinux-debug.bin? Should I move everything 
from /boot/isolinux to /isolinux?

Regards,
Mattias

-- 
Mattias Schlenker - Redaktion + EDV-Beratung + Linux-CD/DVD-Konzepte
Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Str. 3 - 40667 MEERBUSCH - GERMANY

Telefon (VoIP "ueberall"), geschaeftlich: +49 341 39290767
Telefon (Festnetz), privat und Fax:       +49 2132 9952906
Mobil:                                    +49 163  6953657
Mobil (SIM in Testgeraeten):              +49 1578 3499550

Bitte fuer geschaeftliche Telefonate vorzugsweise die VoIP-Telefonnummer
+49 341 39290767 verwenden, da ich diese aufs Mobiltelefon routen kann!

http://blog.rootserverexperiment.de/ http://news.mattiasschlenker.de/

> Hi everyone,
> 
> this is a follow up to:
> 
> http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2013-March/019666.html
> 
> Same config, same .c32 files are present, same directory structure. With 
> 5.10pre2 I get the error "Failed to load COM32 file ldlinux.c32".
At
> least now I know which file cannot be loaded. But ldlinux.c32 is 
> present! Should I try with isolinux-debug.bin? Should I move everything 
> from /boot/isolinux to /isolinux?
> 
> Regards,
> Mattias
 
I would suggest adding "PROMPT 1" to you cfg files for 
troubleshooting. If the first "boot:" prompt shows up without any 
other messages, then the initial isolinux.bin + ldlinux.c32 are 
found. If there are additional messages under this situation, please 
report them.

Now, if the initial "boot:" prompt shows up correctly with no 
additional messages, and further steps (executing the default label) 
leads you to some "ldlinux.c32 not found" (or similar), then you 
would probably need to also post here the additional cfg files, and 
the specific (error) messages.

In order to narrow down the source of the problem, you could also try 
testing ifcpu64.c32 with and without using vesamenu.c32 and comparing 
both results. I mean something like:

 *** isolinux.cfg start *** 
DEFAULT switch
PROMPT 1

LABEL switch
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/ifcpu64.c32
         APPEND sifomenu -- paemenu -- nopamenu

LABEL paemenu
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/hello.c32

LABEL nopamenu
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/hello.c32

LABEL sifomenu
         COM32 /boot/isolinux/hello.c32

 *** isolinux.cfg end *** 

in addition to your original isolinux.cfg (of course, adding all the 
relevant c32 files to /boot/isolinux/).

It would be useful to use the official binaries for these tests, so 
any reports from you can be replicated as close as possible.

HTH,
Ady.

Hi,
> Guess I better contact Thomas Schmitt
Here i am. :))
> When I build the ISO with different parameters for xorriso it works (omit
> EFI boot image and isohybrid boot sector). 
So it does not work from CD or DVD if you let xorriso give it
MBR and GPT ?

If so, then try what happens with such an MBR+GPT-enhanced image
after you zeroized its first 32 KiB. E.g. by

  ( dd bs=1024 if=/dev/zero count=32 ; \
    dd bs=1024 skip=32 if=image_with_mbr_gpt.iso ) \
    >zeroized_mbr_gpt.iso

This zeroizing will remove MBR and GPT but keep any damage that
might have been done to El Torito.

If this partly zeroized image boots properly from CD or DVD,
then your BIOS/EFI/whatever is confused by the presence of
the hard disk partition tables. Maybe because they are wrong.
Question then: Does the not-zeroized image boot from USB stick ?

If the zeroized image does not boot (and if your zeroizing really
only hit the first 32 KiB), then xorriso spoiled El Torito somehow,
or your EFI El Torito "boot image" partition is bad in some way.
Next tests would be to produce
- El Torito for BIOS and EFI by options -b and -e but no isohybrid
  options.
- El Torito for BIOS only but with -b and -isohybrid-mbr but without
  -e and -isohybrid-gpt-basdat or -isohybrid-gpt-hfsplus.


I could need a link to an un-zeroized image in any case.
Best would be if the image is small but demonstrates the problem.
Regrettably i have no system that boots via EFI. But i can do some
theoretical examinations.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

> Am 22.03.2013 10:49, schrieb Mattias Schlenker:
> 
> When I build the ISO with different parameters for xorriso it works 
> (omit EFI boot image and isohybrid boot sector). It was just remarkable 
> that it stopped working when updating Syslinux pre versions - this set 
> me on the wrong track.
> 
> Guess I better contact Thomas Schmitt from xorriso/libburnia on the 
> issue to track down the behaviour.
> 
> Regards,
> Mattias
> 
 
Try with isohybrid but without EFI and review your results. Syslinux 
5.xx has no EFI support, so maybe this is part of your problem.