Etcher claims "Flash failed" but it didn't fail.. it succeeded

[mmikeww]

• Etcher version: 1.10.2
• Operating system and architecture: Win 10 x64
• Image flashed: Tails 5.8
• What do you think should have happened: Etcher tells me flash succeeded
• What happened: Etcher tells me flash failed

I got the first "flash failed" message when I tried to overwrite an existing flashed USB stick. I figured maybe thats not allowed. Then I opened a brand new stick and got the same error. The "Flashing" progress bar completes fully, then the "Verifying" progress bar also completes fully. Both seem to reach 100%. And then immediately after the Verification part finishes, it says "Flash failed".

I was pulling my hair out, trying to reformat and repartition these USB sticks. Finally I came across this post:
https://forums.balena.io/t/error-message-flash-failed/365401/2

There a balena team member suggests to just try it anyway, and that's what I did, and the USB stick booted fine, despite the "failed" message.

Another person in that thread hints that it could be a Windows issue. But even if so, Etcher should do some clever engineering and try to detect that, and not throw a "failed" message when in fact the flash did succeed.

[aethernet]

Indeed this is weird.

The forum thread you pointed out ended up being an issue with the older sd card adapter.

Could it be the case here that you're using a quite old USB stick? What was the model? I'd like to repro, but couldn't so far.

[mmikeww]

SanDisk Cruzer Glide 16gb https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Flash-Cruzer-Glide-SDCZ60-016G-B35/dp/B007YX9O9O/

Not sure if these are considered "old" or not. When the first one gave the error, I opened a brand new one that was still sealed in packaging.

[kylebakerio]

I had this flash failed, just opened logs though and I suspect this error is being thrown and causing a 'wrong' failure message after flash succeeds:

gui.js:46 {"stack":"Error: Error invoking remote method 'enable-screensaver': No handler registered for 'enable-screensaver'\n at EventEmitter.i.invoke (electron/js2c/renderer_init.js:73:529)","message":"Error invoking remote method 'enable-screensaver': No handler registered for 'enable-screensaver'"}

[lurch]

Error invoking remote method 'enable-screensaver'

Maybe that was fixed by #3882 ? :shrug:

[mcraa]

Nope @lurch, that started it, but it has no effect on the functionality.

[kylebakerio]

Yeah, when I posted that comment, I suspected it was successful, but it turned out it truly wasn't, so my comment should be taken as a different issue.

[cretan-ibex]

I have tried both 1.13.1 and 1.12.7 both with the same issue as @kylebakerio shows above.

Any suggestion on another version that would work?

[adamtha]

v1.18.11 running as Admin

still facing the exact same issue on windows 11 and SanDisk cruzer the flash + verify ends successfully the screensaver error seems to mark the process as failed

the flashed OS boots and works as expected

gui.js:35 Verifying 1 device, 97% at 18.00 MB/s (total 18.00 MB/s) eta in 2s with 0 failed devices
gui.js:35 Verifying 1 device, 98% at 17.50 MB/s (total 17.50 MB/s) eta in 1s with 0 failed devices
gui.js:35 Verifying 1 device, 100% at 18.30 MB/s (total 18.30 MB/s) eta in 0s with 0 failed devices
gui.js:37 Finish: 1292605440
gui.js:37 Terminating IPC server
gui.js:37 Flash results {results: {…}, cancelled: false, skip: false}cancelled: falseresults: {bytesWritten: 1292605440, devices: {…}, errors: Array(1), sourceMetadata: {…}, averageFlashingSpeed: 5664651.252476028}skip: false[[Prototype]]: Object
gui.js:37 Error: Error invoking remote method 'enable-screensaver': No handler registered for 'enable-screensaver'
    at o.invoke (node:electron/js2c/renderer_init:57:526)
(anonymous) @ gui.js:37
logException @ gui.js:37
(anonymous) @ gui.js:354

[phillipremaker]

I have the same issue on two Windows 11 machines, with both USB and PCIe based SD card writers and multiple SD cards.

[CrazyWolf13]

Same for me here. On Win11 with balwna version 18.3

[staffa]

As we have established in #4161 (and I would recommend following up there instead), this is likely unrelated to the enable screensaver issue; the failure should instead be present in the flash results object in the line above if opened. Flash results > results > errors > 0 to see the failure that the program is actually reporting.