Check Filesystem error on mounted volume (Linux)

[Vic Ubnann]

Hello, I'm new here. I recently had a system (Debian based) freeze while a volume was mounted then after a reboot I tried to check the filesystem but got this error:

QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
konsole: Unknown option 'caption'.

I've asked on other forums but the advice to ignore it doesn't help as it doesn't proceed to check the filesystem, in fact nothing happens at all, so I'm left wondering about errors on the volume.

Thanks in advance.

[Jertzukka]

Use a newer VeraCrypt version which has the konsole issue fixed, or download gnome-terminal which should work on that version.

[Vic Ubnann]

When I set up this OS about 8 months ago I installed Veracrypt from the package manager but I always got this annoying nag screen every time I started it so I went back to this earlier version.

Maybe it's been fixed now so I'll try that, thanks.

[RealTehreal]

Please provide more information about your system and what you did in which order to produce the message provided above. Additionally, how do you try to verify filesystem integrity, and what's even the filesystem to begin with?

Please provide as much information as possible. Otherwise, all we can do is guess work.

Greets.

[Vic Ubnann]

Okay, thanks.

The volume was on an external 4 TB drive, with both the host drive and the volume itself formatted in ext4. After reboot I mounted it and in the main Veracrypt window I right-clicked on the volume and selected Check Filesystem.

This is not confined to this volume alone as the error is displayed whenever I try Check Filesystem on any other volume.

I'm using VeraCrypt 1.24 - Update 4.

[Vic Ubnann]

So I installed the latest version from the package manager, 1.25.9, but still getting the same error.

Not sure if gnome-terminal would work as I think it requires systemd.

[Jertzukka]

Latest version is 1.26.7, so your distro doesn't have it updated. What the "Check filesystem" does is just launches "fsck -n /dev/mapper/veracryptX" which is the virtual device name, you can find this by right clicking the mounted volume and see Properties and Virtual Device. First unmount the virtual device, then run fsck manually.

For the repair it is the same, but instead with -r flag.

[Vic Ubnann]

Thanks for your advice. After unmounting the volume I ran fsck but then got this - which kind of makes sense; if the volume is unmounted then there is no veracrypt1, right?

fsck -n /dev/mapper/veracrypt1

fsck from util-linux 2.38.1
e2fsck 1.47.0 (5-Feb-2023)
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/mapper/veracrypt1
Possibly non-existent device?

[Jertzukka]

Sorry, I mean unmount the filesystem first. So when the volume is mounted on VeraCrypt on slot 1, you would do sudo umount /dev/mapper/veracrypt1 and then sudo fsck -n /dev/mapper/veracrypt1

[Vic Ubnann]

That did it, thank you. Although the part 'some data may be corrupt' is concerning. I should do a backup.

$ sudo fsck -n /dev/mapper/veracrypt1
fsck from util-linux 2.38.1
fsck.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
This is mostly harmless. Differences: (offset:original/backup)
  65:01/00
  Not automatically fixing this.
Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt.
 Automatically removing dirty bit.

Leaving filesystem unchanged.

[Vic Ubnann]

I forgot to say - my understanding is that fsck can only be run on an unmounted drive. At least, whenever I want to run it on a system drive I need to start it from a live usb, i.e. before system boot.

But therein lies the problem: fsck can still 'see' the system drive even though it's not mounted whereas it can't 'see' an unmounted encrypted drive. Or am I missing something?