Clonezilla / Bugs / #429 "Box" is an unknown partition device. Program terminated!.

Steven Shiau - 2025-04-08

If you are familiar with the command "screen", you can help us to get debug info.
Please:
1. Boot Clonezilla live 3.2.1-21, and enter command line prompt
2. sudo -i
3. screen
4. bash -x clonezilla
Then continue to get the error messages.
Please copy & paste all the output on the screen from the beginning to a file, i.e., the output on the screen from "bash -x clonezilla" to the error messages.
Please share the file. Thanks.
Ref: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/copy-and-paste-screen

Steven

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Mark Marques - 2025-04-09

I tested with the latest 3.2.1-21 ( debian) version and the error is still present.
At the end of the above procedure It reports a /tmp/ocs.tmp ( random letters namefile) , but at the next shell prompt the file is gone ...

Using bash -x clonezzila | tee filenameyy.log reports this :

[?1049h[1;30r[4l(B)0[?25l[m[37m[40m[1;30r[H[J[1;1H[1m[37m[44m [2;1H [3;1H [4;1H [5;1H [6;1H [7;1H [8;1H [9;1H [10;1H [11;1H [12;1H [13;1H [14;1H [15;1H [16;1H [17;1H [18;1H [19;1H [20;1H [21;1H [22;1H [23;1H [24;1H [25;1H [26;1H [27;1H [28;1H [29;1H [30;1H [30;79H [4h [4l[1;1H[m[37m[44mNCHC Free Software Labs, Taiwan

[30m[47m┌────────────────┤ [31mClonezilla - Opensource Clone System (OCS)[30m ├────────────────┐[5;1H│ Clonezilla is free (GPL) software, and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY │[6;1H│ ///Hint! From now on, if multiple choices are available, you have to press │[7;1H│ space key to mark your selection. An asterisk (*) will be shown when the │[8;1H│ selection is done/// │[9;1H│ Two modes are available, you can │[10;1H│ (1) clone/restore a disk or partition using an image │[11;1H│ (2) disk to disk or partition to partition clone/restore. │[12;1H│ Besides, Clonezilla lite server and client modes are also available. You can │[13;1H│ use them for massive deployment │[14;1H│ Select mode: │[15;1H│ │[16;1H│ [37m[41mdevice-image work with disks or partitions using images [30m[47m │[17;1H│ device-device work directly from a disk or partition to a disk or partitio │[18;1H│ remote-source Enter source mode of remote device cloning │[19;1H│ remote-dest Enter destination mode of remote device cloning │[20;1H│ lite-server Enter_Clonezilla_live_lite_server │[21;1H│ lite-client Enter_Clonezilla_live_lite_client │[22;1H│ │[23;1H│ │[24;1H│ <ok> <cancel> │[25;1H│ │[26;1H└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘[27;2H[1m[37m[40m [16;4H[34h[?25h[30;1H[m[37m[40m[m[39;49m</cancel></ok>

[?1049lClonezilla mode is device-image
[?1049h[1;30r[4l(B)0[?25l[m[37m[40m[1;30r[H[J[1;1H[1m[37m[44m [2;1H [3;1H [4;1H [5;1H [6;1H [7;1H [8;1H [9;1H [10;1H [11;1H [12;1H [13;1H [14;1H [15;1H [16;1H [17;1H [18;1H [19;1H [20;1H [21;1H [22;1H [23;1H [24;1H [25;1H [26;1H [27;1H [28;1H [29;1H [30;1H [30;79H [4h [4l[1;1H[m[37m[44mNCHC Free Software Labs, Taiwan[6;1H[30m[47m┌─────────────────────┤ [31mMount Clonezilla image directory[30m ├─────────────────────┐[7;1H│ Before cloning, you have to assign where the Clonezilla image will be saved │[8;1H│ to or read from. We will mount that device or remote resources as │[9;1H│ /home/partimag. The Clonezilla image will be saved to or read from │[10;1H│ /home/partimag. │[11;1H│ │[12;1H│ [37m[41mlocal_dev Use local device (E.g.: hard drive, USB drive) [30m[47m │[13;1H│ ssh_server Use SSH server │[14;1H│ samba_server Use SAMBA server (Network Neighborhood server) │[15;1H│ nfs_server Use NFS server │[16;1H│ webdav_server Use_WebDAV_server │[17;1H│ s3_server Use_AWS_S3_server │[18;1H│ enter_shell Enter command line prompt. Do it manually │[19;1H│ ram_disk Use memory (OK for BT or multicast from raw device) │[20;1H│ skip Use existing /home/partimag (Memory! NOT RECOMMENDED) │[21;1H│ │[22;1H│ │[23;1H│ <ok> <cancel> │[24;1H│ │[25;1H└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘[26;2H[1m[37m[40m [12;6H[34h[?25h[30;1H[m[37m[40m[m[39;49m</cancel></ok>

[?1049locsroot device is local_dev
Preparing the mount point /home/partimag...
[1;33mIf you want to use USB device as a Clonezilla image repository, please
* Insert USB device into this machine now
* Wait for about 5 secs
* Press Enter key
so that the OS can detect the USB device and later we can mount it as /home/partimag.
[0;39mPress "Enter" to continue......Mounting local dev as /home/partimag...
Finding all disks and partitions..
Excluding busy partition......
Excluding linux raid member partition...........
Finding all disks and partitions..
Excluding busy harddisk......
Excluding linux raid member partition.....
Finding partitions........
Partition number: 8
Preparing the dialog menu info........... done!
[?1049h[1;30r[4l(B)0[?25l[m[37m[40m[1;30r[H[J[1;1H[1m[37m[44m [2;1H [3;1H [4;1H [5;1H [6;1H [7;1H [8;1H [9;1H [10;1H [11;1H [12;1H [13;1H [14;1H [15;1H [16;1H [17;1H [18;1H [19;1H [20;1H [21;1H [22;1H [23;1H [24;1H [25;1H [26;1H [27;1H [28;1H [29;1H [30;1H [30;79H [4h [4l[1;1H[34h[?25h[m[37m[44mNCHC Free Software Labs, Taiwan

[30m[47m┌───────────┤ [31mClonezilla - Opensource Clone System (OCS) | Mode: [30m ├────────────┐[4;1H│ │[5;1H│ │[6;1H│ │[7;1H│ │[8;1H│ │[9;1H│ │[10;1H│ │[11;1H│ │[12;1H│ │[13;1H│ │[14;1H│ │[15;1H│ │[16;1H│ │[17;1H│ │[18;1H│ │[19;1H│ │[20;1H│ │[21;1H│ │[22;1H│ │[23;1H│ │[24;1H│ │[25;1H│ │[26;1H│ │[27;1H└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘[28;2H[1m[37m[40m [30;1H[m[37m[40m[m[39;49m

[?1049l[1;31m"Box" is an unknown partition device. Program terminated!.
[0;39mPress Enter to exit...[1;33mUnable to mount resource as /home/partimag.
Are you sure you want to continue?
[0;39m[y/N] Program terminated!
Press "Enter" to continue......

Which is not very useful .... Nonetheless later on I will try to catch the original screen /tmp/file ... thank you in advance
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Mark Marques - 2025-04-09

After some more testing it seems that the /tmp/ocsmenu.yyyy file is touched , but afterwards is deleted ...
( opened in parallel another TTY and found out the ocsmenu.yyy file with 0 bytes . ..
But afterwards It disappears after I select the devices ...

Somewhere along the way the log mecanism is not working ....
Any more ideas ?

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- Steven Shiau - 2025-04-10
  
  You should use the copy & paste way, forget about /tmp/ocsmenu.yyyy file.
  
  Steven
  
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Mark Marques - 2025-04-09

Another odd detail...
this machine is booting via UEFI with "NO secureboot" flag active .

It does NOT show the startup Menu,
Booting automatically by default
until the selecting clonezilla and or the "enter_shell" TUI menu screen .

No option to select the " Clonezilla TO_RAM" startup mode ...

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Steven Shiau - 2025-04-10

"No option to select the " Clonezilla TO_RAM" startup mode ..." -> You can find that in the other modes of boot menu.

Steven

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Mark Marques - 2025-04-10

What I tried to report is that in UEFI mode ( I think) , there is NO Menu to select the differente clonezilla modes.

It seems that in that specific UEFI machine type , clonezilla boots in a default nonchangable mode .
nonetheless in the second ticket is the text present in the console ( withe escape codes) ...

As seen, there is after listing the partitions , the "box" error with an almost empty screen with
no further information ...

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Steven Shiau - 2025-04-10

I can not find that why your boot menu is different from this one:
https://clonezilla.org//fine-print-live-doc.php?path=./clonezilla-live/doc/01_Save_disk_image/01-clonezilla-boot-menu.doc#01-clonezilla-boot-menu.doc
Could you please take a photo about your boot menu then post it?
Thanks.

Steven

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bagged 9008 - 2025-05-07

I am also having this problem with 3.2.1-28 but not 3.2.1-19. Testing 3.2.2 gives me the same result. No menu problem and no difference with ram. All drives are loaded properly in the "ctrl-c" menu but partitiaon menu fails becuse of unknown device "Box". No such device is listed before this. The partition scan runs and fails building the menu to display the partitions.

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Mark Marques - 2025-05-08

Sorry for the late reply , but only yesterday had another batch of machines to test.

Tested with latest plucky version and the problem is still present...
Nonetheless with this version I get this in the clonezilla.log:
"Box" is an unknown partition device. Program terminated!.

Another important detail I am using Ventoy to boot the ISO .
If I keep the default boot it goes straight booting with any MENU ( as stated) before.

If I select the "GRUB" boot option in Ventoy I am able to reach and select the Clonezilla Menu but despite booting correctly in the different options, right after checking the devices to select the "image repository" I get this "box" error ....

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- bagged 9008 - 2025-05-08
  
  I tried both with Ventoy and with a directly written bootable flash drive and got the same "Box" message and no partition selection menu. It does not seem to be a Ventoy problem for me. On a UEFI box selecting both normal and grub2 modes give the same results because, I think, in UEFI it will always boot with grub2. Given that the error appears once we are in the program flow I don't think its a booting problem.
  
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Ole Nielsen - 2025-05-08

Same problem here.

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Ole Nielsen - 2025-05-08

I have tried with 3.2.1-19 as bagged 9008 proposed but with the same result.

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Steven Shiau - 2025-05-09

Still we can not reproduce the issue here.
Please boot Clonezilla live 3.2.1-28, and enter command line prompt, run:
1. sudo -i
2. cat /proc/partitions
3. lsblk
4. blkid
5. mount
Please post the results of 2-5. Thanks.

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Ole Nielsen - 2025-05-09

Will photos be ok? I am not quite sure how to dump text to the hard disk from CloneZilla.

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Steven Shiau - 2025-05-09

Yes, photos will be OK.

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Ole Nielsen - 2025-05-09

Hereby photos from 2-5. The last one is running out of screen.

20250509_101659-2.jpg

20250509_101708-3.jpg

20250509_101736-4.jpg

20250509_101804-5.jpg

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bagged 9008 - 2025-05-10

Here is a screenshot of the machine which is raising the box error on 3.2.1-28 but not 3.2.1-19. This all look pretty normal to me. There is an echo about building the menu, time period and then a blank menu box which usually for the selection of the working partition (I always choose the device mounted here as /sdc) appears. It is seems to be the "box" device is introduced at this stage.

Last edit: bagged 9008 2025-05-10

IMG_20250510_074030.jpg

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Steven Shiau - 2025-05-10

Thanks you for providing those photos. However, I still can not find why.
If you are able to boot Clonezilla live and start its sshd service for me to login to test, please email me at steven@stevenshiau.org
Or if you can reproduce this issue in a virtual machine, please share its virtual disk so we can try to reproduce this issue here.
Thanks.

Steven

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Mark Marques - 2025-05-10

Thank you for the screenshots,
as I posted initially the pasted text is exactly those screenschots.

Nonetheless the result from steven Shiau request works as it should ...
Although I do not have right the possibility to upload the screenshots nor the text .

Only monday I have access again to reply fully.
But in one test all the above commands ( individally ) showed the correct information expected.

In the industrial PC I had an internal SSD ; the Clonezilla / ventoy USB device and an external USB HDD .

After the error I tried to boot without the HDD until I plugged it in only in the "repository device request menu" loop. With no changes whatsoever .

Nonetheless later I tried to boot only with Clonezilla direct ( to put Ventoy away from the equation) with the same result.

Thank you again for the support and as soon as I can ( monday) I will post the formal partition request list.

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Steven Shiau - 2025-05-10

Thanks to Bagged 9008 for providing the environment to debug. I believe this issue has been fixed.
Please give testing Clonezilla live 3.2.2-2 or 20250510-* a try:
https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
Please let us know the results.

Steven

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bagged 9008 - 2025-05-10

I have tried 3.2.2 (debian) and this seems to have resolved the problem which was a space in a partition label. My first boot partition was called "EFI SYSTEM" and when changed to "EFISYSTEM" 3.2.1-28 works normally. I reinserted a space and tried 3.2.2-2 and it parses the space and builds a menu normally. Explains why there was no pattern based on hardware. The cryptic debug message "Box" doesnt help but Steven does not dev the Whiptail menu generator. So, Watch This Box. Thank-you for your dedication, Steven.

Last edit: bagged 9008 2025-05-10

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Mark Marques - 2025-05-10

Just to report that with the latest version (3.2.2-2 ) this "Box" problem is now solved.

Find out the problem in a HP Z400 workstation . as "Bagged 9008 " indicated the detail was in fact related to the the "space" in the Win partition "EFI SYSTEM" name , whereas all the machine that had this beaviour had the most recent win installations in UEFI mode.

Monday I will try to apply this version to the industrial PCs .

Thank for you the great support and dedication Mr. Steven Shiau .

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Steven Shiau - 2025-05-11

@bagged 9008 & Mark,
It's great to know that. Thanks for confirming this issue has been resolved.

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Ole Nielsen - 2025-05-11

Same here. The problem seems to be solved.

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"Box" is an unknown partition device. Program terminated!.

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#429 "Box" is an unknown partition device. Program terminated!.

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