[BUG]: e2fsck has unsupported feature(s): FEATURE_C12

[lucky9-cyou]

Describe the bug

When I mounted my archlinux ext4 partition, add following lines in hardware-configure.nix:

fileSystems."/mnt/archlinux" =
  { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/83cd3978-aa18-4f38-b1cb-3d77ab8f46ea";
    fsType = "ext4";
    options = ["nofail"];
  };

I got following error:

warning: the following units failed: systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-83cd3978\x2daa18\x2d4f38\x2db1cb\x2d3d77ab8f46ea.service

× systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-83cd3978\x2daa18\x2d4f38\x2db1cb\x2d3d77ab8f46ea.service - File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/83cd3978-aa18-4f38-b1cb-3d77ab8f46ea
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/systemd-fsck@.service; static)
    Drop-In: /nix/store/jw3fxhphlsclz87w4sl8iax1k7zmxfc9-system-units/systemd-fsck@.service.d
             └─overrides.conf
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2023-05-02 18:12:16 CST; 51ms ago
       Docs: man:systemd-fsck@.service(8)
    Process: 4492 ExecStart=/nix/store/zbgzqym70ca90228l9z9jzzwbn0wdd22-systemd-253.3/lib/systemd/systemd-fsck /dev/disk/by-uuid/83cd3978-aa18-4f38-b1cb-3d77ab8f46ea (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 4492 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
         IP: 0B in, 0B out
        CPU: 4ms

May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd[1]: Starting File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/83cd3978-aa18-4f38-b1cb-3d77ab8f46ea...
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd-fsck[4494]: /dev/nvme0n1p2 has unsupported feature(s): FEATURE_C12
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd-fsck[4494]: e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd-fsck[4494]: /dev/nvme0n1p2: ********** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors **********
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd-fsck[4492]: fsck failed with exit status 12.
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd[1]: systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-83cd3978\x2daa18\x2d4f38\x2db1cb\x2d3d77ab8f46ea.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd[1]: systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-83cd3978\x2daa18\x2d4f38\x2db1cb\x2d3d77ab8f46ea.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 18:12:16 nixos systemd[1]: Failed to start File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/83cd3978-aa18-4f38-b1cb-3d77ab8f46ea.
warning: error(s) occurred while switching to the new configuration

And I use e2fsck 1.47.0, I didn't get this error. The output is following:

[lucky@nixos:~/Downloads/e2fsprogs-1.47.0/e2fsck]$ sudo ./e2fsck /dev/nvme0n1p2
e2fsck 1.47.0 (5-Feb-2023)
/dev/nvme0n1p2: clean, 1738331/122036224 files, 65701918/488128256 blocks

My current e2fsck version is 1.46.6. Maybe we need to update the e2fsck version with unstable channel.

[samueljohnson]

Ditto.

Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Sony     Storage Media    0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 61523712 512-byte logical blocks: (31.5 GB/29.3 GiB)
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel:  sdb: sdb1
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: Found device Storage_Media SONY.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: Starting File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/05911a4b-d998-4e2c-9bb4-eec762818
7e1...
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd-fsck[1443]: /dev/sdb1 has unsupported feature(s): FEATURE_C12
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd-fsck[1443]: e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd-fsck[1443]: SONY: ********** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors **********
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd-fsck[1441]: fsck failed with exit status 12.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-05911a4b\x2dd998\x2d4e2c\x2d9bb4\x2deec7628187e1
.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-05911a4b\x2dd998\x2d4e2c\x2d9bb4\x2deec7628187e1
.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: Failed to start File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/05911a4b-d998-4e2c-9bb4-ee
c7628187e1.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: Dependency failed for /mnt/sony.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: local-fs.target: Job local-fs.target/start failed with result 'dependency'.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: local-fs.target: Triggering OnFailure= dependencies.
Jun 17 13:10:35 asus systemd[1]: mnt-sony.mount: Job mnt-sony.mount/start failed with result 'dependency'.

[lucky9-cyou]

The update has been merged. And the unstable channel of nixpkgs has been updated too. I will close this issue.

[da-the-dev]

I'm trying to dualboot Arch and nixos and get this error during installation. I chose the option "Install alongside". I've tried to install the freshest e2fsck manually, but to no avail. Is it possible to dualboot this way, or should I completely reinstall?

I even tried an older version of nixos, nixos-plasma5-22.05.998.d17a56d90ec-x86_64-linux, but that also didn't work.

I tried installing on a fresh VM and everything went smoothly, so Arch must be somehow interfering with the install.

[lucky9-cyou]

Perhaps you should not use the option "install alongside". I'm also dual booting arch and nixos, but I put them on different disks and created /boot and / directory for each one.

[da-the-dev]

Perhaps you should not use the option "install alongside". I'm also dual booting arch and nixos, but I put them on different disks and created /boot and / directory for each one.

Well, I wish I could do that, but my laptop doesn't have 2 disk slots, so this is still an issue.

[7c6f434c]

Maybe boot from a live medium of Arch to shrink the partition there, so that NixOS install doesn't need to touch the existing / ? (BTW, I have used two separate UEFI system partitions on the same disk, this is motherboard-dependent, but with some laptops it works fine)

[MarSoft]

If you encounter this too (especially on something like Raspberry), you can use the following workaround.
According to release notes, the feature added in version 1.47.0 is orphan_file. And it was also added to the list of default features for e2fsck.
So if a filesystem was created with e2fsck 1.47.0 then it will have this feature enabled by default.

You can disable this feature on an already-created filesystem, but it should not mounted. (You may have to boot from live-USB or something.) Disable it as follows:

1. tune2fs -O ^orphan_file /dev/mydevice
2. e2fsck -f /dev/mydevice

The 2nd command will find and remove the inodes related to this feature.

[bphd]

If you encounter this too (especially on something like Raspberry), you can use the following workaround. According to release notes, the feature added in version 1.47.0 is orphan_file. And it was also added to the list of default features for e2fsck. So if a filesystem was created with e2fsck 1.47.0 then it will have this feature enabled by default.

You can disable this feature on an already-created filesystem, but it should not mounted. (You may have to boot from live-USB or something.) Disable it as follows:

1. tune2fs -O ^orphan_file /dev/mydevice
2. e2fsck -f /dev/mydevice

The 2nd command will find and remove the inodes related to this feature.

Careful as in zsh ^orphan_file develop as same as * (so basically all pwd files)

Maybe a patch should be made to give the 1.47.0 feature in 23.05. Or maybe a patch to automatically perform those two commands on any ext4 at boot, because actually 23.05 can't use those new filesystems as is

And maybe add # before the command to indicate that on default/normal/common systems, root rights will be needed to perform actions on /dev/*

Those are meant to be applied once, or each time 1.47.0 touch it, runs? Each NixOS 23.05 boot?