18.3 Installer will not preserve /home partition data

[mjtux]

I don't know if this is a known issue that has already been addressed.
I did see some posts about a similar error with the MX-19 Beta 2.1, but this is with 18.3.

I was using a newly created USB flash drive with the following ISO:
[indent]
MX-18.3_x64 Continuum May 26 2019
The ISO was downloaded from http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/
MX-18.3_August_x64.iso
[/indent]

During a re-install process several days ago, the installer refused to preserve the data in the existing /home partition.
It displayed a message something like:

Code: Select all

the data in the home partition can not be preserved because the required information was not available

note: quote BBCode doesn't work properly

Both the root and home partitions were of type EXT4 with GPT partitioning.
At least 50% of the partition space was free.
The drive is an ADATA XPG SX8200 PCIe NVMe.

[Eadwine Rose]

Ob bbcode: you have to use the quote button " for that, text inside is going to be quote, not indent :)

[mjtux]

Ob bbcode: you have to use the quote button " for that, text inside is going to be quote, not indent :)

This is what happens with quote.

The placemnet of the inserted quotation marks doesn't look right to me

That's why I used "code" instead.
"indent" was meant for the block above. It just isn't recognized here. :(
====
Don't know if I should have also given info. about the motherboard.
ASRock H370M Pro 4
CSM - Compatibility Support Module .. disabled

[Jerry3904]

BTW: I reported seeing this a couple of days ago as well:
1) I upgraded the installer before starting.
2) I wanted to preserve /home.
3) I got the message about not being able to format the partition.
4) the installer hung and I had to kill it and start again.
This happened two different times.

Can give more info if necessary...

[mjtux]

Thanks, Jerry.

BTW: I reported seeing this a couple of days ago as well:
1) I upgraded the installer before starting.
2) I wanted to preserve /home.
3) I got the message about not being able to format the partition.
4) the installer hung and I had to kill it and start again.

The situation was a little different with me.
The message I got said that the /home partition could Not be saved, which I understood to mean that it would be formatted.
I tried about three times, with the same result and did not go any further.

The solution for me was to create both a new root and /home partition, do a full fresh install, install a few packages and copy certain config settings from backup.

The reason for the re-install was to restore auto-login and the systemd boot menu option.
I have a multi-boot setup with Mint controlling the boot menu process.
Multiple attempts at restoring auto-login through the User Manager failed, even with loging out and back in as 'root'.

Now both issues are restored.

systemd boot is very fast and smooth. There is virtually no screen chatter during boot.
It goes from boot menu to desktop display in six seconds! :WOW