Install Error: write /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/IncusOSInstallComplete

IncusOS
1

I am trying to install IncusOS on my ASUS X99-E-10G WS.

I recently purchased a TPM to get passed the early boot TPM warnings.

I then:

  1. cleared all secure boot keys from my bios
  2. disabled secure boot
  3. booted onto the IncusOS usb
  4. Let IncusOS install the secure boot keys
  5. Enabled secure boot
  6. Set boot options to start with the USB drive

Bam - we are booting into IncusOS!

The installer kicks off, and shortly after cloning partition 5/5, I get the error:

Error: write /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/IncusOSInstallComplete-12f075e0-2d07-493d-811a-00920a72c04c: invalid argument

After this, it just keeps restarting the installer, getting to the error again, and restarting.

I tried clearing my BIOS settings back to factory, and repeating the secure boot key process above, only to get the same result.

Any ideas how I can fix this?

2

Hmm… it seems if I time it right, and manually reboot whilst the error message is displayed on the screen (before it restarts the installer)… then the installation is actually finished and it boots into IncusOS fine on the next boot with the USB drive removed.

3

Hmm, that looks like a firmware bug actually… We try to set a pretty basic UEFI config option, the fact that the kernel isn’t allowed to do it suggests that either the NVRAM is full (was an issue a while back with early UEFI implementations) or the firmware somehow refuses to let the OS write to variables.

@gibmat I don’t think it’s particularly useful to retry the installation in that scenario, maybe we should just log an error and move on instead?

4

Efivars seems to have plenty of space available, and I made sure it wasn’t filled with any large debug files.

I suspect it’s a firmware bug too, since the ASUS X99-E-10G WS motherboard was released in 2014, and support ended in 2020.

Agree that it would be better if the install just noted the error but pronounced success anyway. I am now successfully using IncusOS simply having rebooted the installer whilst that error was on the screen (before install restarts).