15

After upgrading Ubuntu 13.10 to 14.04, grub failed to load Ubuntu and threw the error symbol 'grub_term_highlight_color' not found. I followed the solution offered in the Bug Report but this failed for me, throwing the error failed to get canonical path of /cow.

Now, I'm trying to install Boot-Repair to fix this problem on a live pen-drive, using these commands. 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (boot-repair &)

But after adding and updating the repositories, it shows ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair 404 Not Found error.

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/yannubuntu/boot-repair/ubuntu/dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found

Is this problem solvable or is there an alternative PPA for Boot-Repair?

Braiam
  • 67,791
  • 32
  • 179
  • 269
Joren
  • 5,053
  • 8
  • 38
  • 54
  • did you face any problem by following the accepted answer? – Avinash Raj Apr 18 '14 at 16:31
  • Not at all, it might not be the most elegant solution but it works perfectly and it is the quickest solution. – Joren Apr 18 '14 at 16:34
  • The PPA doesn't have a package ready for Trusty. Just mail the maintainers. – Braiam Apr 18 '14 at 21:07
  • 1
    After upgrade from 13.10 to 14.04 I was left with unbootable computer. My Configuration is Toshiba P875 laptop with Windows 8 preinstalled. Using bootable boot-repair.iso (http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/) worked for me to. – Ivan Mladenovic May 12 '14 at 07:59

4 Answers4

27

Update: The PPA currently offers updated packages for 14.04 and above.

Workaround: install packages for an older release

It showed a 404 not found error because the PPA was not updated for the newer release (trusty). To install boot-repair in Ubuntu 14.04, run the below commands on terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
codename="$(lsb_release -cs)"
sudo sh -c "sed -i 's/$codename/saucy/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yannubuntu-boot-repair-$codename.list"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (boot-repair &)

Now use the recommended repair option to repair your grub and restart after boot-repair finished repairing.

LiveWireBT
  • 28,763
Avinash Raj
  • 78,556
  • 1
    Please, post the reason for downvotes. – Avinash Raj Apr 18 '14 at 16:16
  • 5
    why would some one down vote this! worked for me, thanks man! – Ataur Rahim Chowdhury Apr 18 '14 at 17:27
  • after the last step (install -y boot repair) cmd reach "/usr/share/boot-sav/gui-g2slaunch.sh: line 33: hash: gksudo: not found /usr/share/boot-sav/gui-g2slaunch.sh: line 35: hash: gksu: not found" and displays a boot repair window saying "scanning systems(os-prober).This may take several minutes" ... :( But doesnt end ..Why ? :( – Amila Iddamalgoda Apr 20 '14 at 09:52
  • Now this answer was added to the boot-repair community page. – Avinash Raj Apr 23 '14 at 08:07
  • I think that those downvotes are because of "using saucy packages on trusty is bad, bebebe". Just ignore them. I got a downvote on another answer because of that reason. Fortunately I had no upvotes, so just deleted it. – Danatela May 12 '14 at 08:03
  • @Danatela did you see the community wiki page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair. This answer was added to that because there is a major bug in the 14.04 grub package. – Avinash Raj May 12 '14 at 08:06
  • To anybody who wants to downvote this because "using saucy packages on trusty is bad", consider that this answer is often the only option for many people. This worked for me, and was the only grub-repair option I had. There were also no bad sidefects of using it so I see no problem using saucy packages here. – rajlego Oct 12 '14 at 23:11
  • You should now update your answer to serve the "utopic" distribution. – Attilio Oct 27 '14 at 15:38
  • This fails for me on 14.04.1 with gksudo: not found and gksu: not found. Doing an apt-get install gksu tells me Package gksu is not available, but is referred to by another package. – Bryan Larsen Oct 28 '14 at 13:56
  • Why are you using gksu instead of sudo ? – Avinash Raj Oct 28 '14 at 13:58
  • I'm not. boot-repair is. I had to enable universe on my livecd to install gksu. Hopefully that works. – Bryan Larsen Oct 28 '14 at 13:59
  • yep, install gksu – Avinash Raj Oct 28 '14 at 14:00
  • It didn't work on the first try, but I did eventually get it to work. I had to run dosfsck on the efi partition. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1091477/comments/14 – Bryan Larsen Oct 28 '14 at 14:34
6

Update: There is a bug report on lp - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1289977

From the above bug report,

-Boot (14.04) from a pendrive -Mount my root file system (where /boot is)

sudo mount /dev/sdaX /mnt

/dev/sdaX is the location of your /boot directory

-run: "sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt//boot /dev/sdX"

The exact command depends on if you have a separate boot partition

Separate /boot partition

sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

No separate /boot partition

grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sda

Then reboot with HDD

Three options:

  1. Wait for the maintainer of the ppa to build a package for 14.04 . This is probably the slowest and least practical.

  2. File a bug report with the against boot-repair asking for a 14.04 package. Will possibly be a bit faster.

  3. Boot an older version of Ubuntu, 13.10, and run boot-repair. You will probably be just fine with an older version.

I suppose there is a 4th option - debug grub manually, what error message are you getting and tell us about your installation.

Panther
  • 102,067
  • Thank you for your answer. After upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 I got the grub error error symbol 'grub_term_highlight_color' not found. And when I try to make changes to grub from the terminal I get the message error: failed to get canonical path of /cow'. – Joren Apr 18 '14 at 15:10
  • What about manually changing trusty to saucy? Yes, it isn't a clean method at all but should work. – jobin Apr 18 '14 at 15:10
  • 1
    See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1289977 – Panther Apr 18 '14 at 15:12
  • @Jobin - I would consider that on a live CD. There is a bug report and fix available as above. – Panther Apr 18 '14 at 15:18
2

The first workaround mentioned in this bug report worked for me:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/boot-repair/+bug/1267702

Basically, you have to manually install three .deb packages: glade2script, boot-sav and then boot-repair (in this order). Use the most recent ones (the ones for saucy).

user270448
  • 29
  • 1
2

Had the same error "symbol 'grub_term_highlight_color' not found", stuck at Grub rescue. Tried boot-repair (recommended option), but didn't work!

Solution: Downloaded bootable boot-repair.iso (http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/) and made a bootable usb disk. Booted from it and connected to internet and started "Recommended Repair", then followed the instructions in a few steps (manually delete/uninstall grub and then re-install a new version), which worked!

user191413
  • 49
  • 3