solution to one type of "failed to initialize HAL" -- upgrade

[xiang]

Hi

Here I describe a type of "failed to initialize HAL" problem and its solution. (There are so many types of "failed to initialize HAL", so please check whether your symptom is the same as mine first).

symptom:
install ubuntu 7.04 by wubi
when login, a pop-out window said "internal error, failed to initialize HAL". You will also found "no network connection" on the network icon at the systemtray. In addition, you can't open "power management" and "hardware information" in "preference".

solution:
search "hal" in synaptic, you will find the below packages
hal
hal-device-manager
libhal-storage1
libhal1

check the properties of them, you can notice they have 2 versions. !!! force them to the old version. Everything will be OK.

(BTW, I also do a little other changes. I am not sure whether they also have effects but you can try if something goes wrong.
force kdebase-kio-plugins to old version
install hal-cups-utils libopenexr2c2a initscripts)

conclusion
This problem is due to the upgrade of HAL related packages. It seems that this problem just occurs in the systems installed by wubi but not in standard systems. I also encountered other problems (slow system) when upgraded, I am not sure what caused them, ubuntu itself or wubi? So my experience is if your system run well, do not upgrade.

[ago]

That's an interesting bug,

It's not the first time I saw bug reports abou hal upgrade, but I was never able to reproduce that on my machine. If you could digg the exact reason, it would help a lot.

[bibobx]

hi ijust posted this in other thread: i found this kind of solution:
copy the simlink S12Dbus from /etc/rc3.d to /etc/rc2.d it worked for me

[xiang]

This method is not suitable for me because I had S12dbus in /etc/rc2.d when I encountered the problem. As noted, there are many reasons leading to "failed to initialize HAL" , so it will be helpful if you can provide the description of your specific "failed to initialize HAL" with this solution.

[moulin]

I experience the same problem. I had to go for xiang's solution. Is there a way I can send in some log files so the hal development team can have a look at it?

Kind regards,

Marco

[ago]

I experience the same problem. I had to go for xiang's solution. Is there a way I can send in some log files so the hal development team can have a look at it?

Kind regards,

Marco

If you think there is a bug, you can open a ticket in launchpad.net. Be as specific as possible.

[moulin]

If you think there is a bug, you can open a ticket in launchpad.net. Be as specific as possible.

https://launchpad.net/hal ? Or might this be a bug for wubi?

[ago]

I don't know since I cannot reproduce that on my machine and no user so far has submitted detailed info on it.

[moulin]

Any idea what command I can try to create a log file I can submit?

[ago]

I am not that familiar with hal, I guess /var/log/syslog is a good starting point, moreover you may try to stop the hal daemon and then start it manually on a console with --daemon=no --verbose=yes