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System Not Booting - Failed to activate swap /swapfile

rated 0 times [ 3] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 21941 / 1 Year ago, tue, january 10, 2023, 12:53:39

I am 100% new to Linux as of yesterday and I seem to have done something wrong. I had the system up and running last night with no obvious issues but today when I try to boot up I get an error and the whole thing fails.

Some background: My computer has a 500 GB SSD which is what Ubuntu (version 20.04.1) was installed onto and a 2TB HDD which I formatted for use last night. I suspect that my issue is related to that fact, because I was able to restart the system multiple times without issue before I formatted it. Unfortunately I do not know enough about Ubuntu to even know where to start, and I could not seem to find any help for my specific situation online.

On startup I'm presented with 3 options

Ubuntu

Advanced options for ubuntu

UEFI Firmware Settings

Here's the specific output I'm getting after selecting Ubuntu:

    [Failed] Failed to activate swap /swapfile

    [Depend] Dependency failed for Swap

Let me know if there's any other information that's relevant to the issue or if there's anything I should try. All advice is appreciated.

Here is the output from running the recommended commands in the root access:

    grep -i swap /etc/fstab

    /swapfile          none          swap    sw          0     0



    ls -al /swapfile

    -rw------- 1 root root 2147483648 Sep 24 03:41 /swapfile

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tatoethin

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answered 1 Year ago olouredping · Accepted Answer

That all looks normal, but let's recreate the /swapfile.

Boot to Recovery Mode like you just did, and do this...

Note: Incorrect use of the dd command can cause data loss. Suggest copy/paste.

In the terminal (or root # prompt)...

sudo swapoff -a           # turn off swap

sudo rm -i /swapfile      # remove old /swapfile



sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=4096



sudo chmod 600 /swapfile  # set proper file protections

sudo mkswap /swapfile     # init /swapfile

sudo swapon /swapfile     # turn on swap

free -h                   # confirm nnG RAM and 4G swap

Confirm this /swapfile line at the end of /etc/fstab... and confirm no other “swap” lines...

To edit, use sudo -H gedit /etc/fstab or sudo pico /etc/fstab

/swapfile    none    swap    sw      0   0

reboot                    # reboot and verify operation

Update #1:

/etc/fstab was messed up and causing the file system to be read-only. Only had 1 hour on freshly installed Ubuntu, so I recommended to reinstall Ubuntu again.

UUID="fae3ba3a-abaf-4eca-8139-40d5328d017c" /srv ext4 errors=remount-ro 0