Squashfs error in Zorin 18 live session

General Help
1

Yesterday I got a squashfs error in Zorin 18 Lite live session when I clicked on logout.
I used to experience this quite often in Zorin 18 Core live sessions, but not lately. The error usually happened when I logged out or resumed a session.

The screen fills up with error messages, and the only thing I can do is a hard shut down of the computer.
I’ve never experienced this in an Xfce nor Zorin Lite session before.
Is my USB drive broken? Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening again? In Gnome, disabling the extensions helped.

What can I do in Xfce to make it more stable?

2

SquashFS is a compressed filesystem which is prone to overlay corruption during session close or login.

So a heavy Desktop like Gnome, which is more complex, might show errors more often or more easily, any D.E. can do it.
Avoiding overlay faults boils down to being minimal and reducing system demand.
On Gnome, reducing Extensions could have a good effect for that.

On XFCE, you should not need to - but lately you have been hunting a unicorn, seeking window grab areas, installing and removing different compositors and all kinds of things...

1 Like
3

During my tests with other compositors and wms I didn't had this error. And on Zorin 18 Lite session I didn't install such things yet.
I think it's unfair that you dismiss my attempts like that, even though you yourself use a completely modified system and have surely learned a lot of it through trial and error to have such extensive knowledge and experience now.

4

Um.

It is not unfair in any way. It is a scientifically accurate assessment of how SquashFS works. It was not dismissive, nor was it intended to belittle modification.

My system is often and often heavily modified, but it is a fully implemented filesystem, not SquashFS.
And when I make modifications, I check the back end.

Informing you of a highly probable cause for your O.P. is the proper course of action. It is the very thing you asked for clarity on.

5

Yes, and I can exclude what you wrote as the reason for the error. Of course, you couldn't have known that.
I'm wondering if it is a hardware problem.

6

As XFCE is quite lightweight, and if you have not installed any experimental operations; that can leave hardware possibilities that can lead to overlay corruption in SquashFS, like RAM or partition (USB) faults.
Given that - you can see why looking at software is the preferred starting point.

I would start with a MemTest on RAM. If that passes, then a bad (corrupt) ISO or a bad write of the ISO onto USB can cause it.
Redownloading the ISO, checking the checksum and recreating the persistence LiveUSB would be the easiest way of navigating that...

1 Like
7

The checksum has not been published when I downloaded the .iso, but now it is. That's a good idea. I'll check the checksum and make a memtest.

1 Like
8

It may be a good idea, in that case, to re-download the .iso - just in case. It should be a mostly painless step.

Hopefully, it is something that simple and not hardware or a trickier fault.

1 Like
9

A Factor could be that it is a Live Session and not installed. You could install it and compare if it works better when installed vs. running it in Live Session.

10

Yes, that could be a factor. I wanted to see if I liked Zorin 18 Lite first and wait until the initial issues are resolved.

I'm a bit hesitant to install it on my old Dell, since I had fan issues with Mint 22 XFCE after updates. However, the Zorin 18 live session ran quite smoothly on the device.
Right now as it is without adaptations, I think Zorin 18 Lite is worse than Zorin 17 Lite. A few more updates are needed to fix the bugs.

11

I downloaded the .iso again and checked the checksum (it was correct).
A memory test also was passed.
I'll see if that fixes the problem.

12

The sqashfs error has not occurred since then.

1 Like