dracut-initqueue timeout and root LV missing, some LV's missing in rescue mode

March 26, 2018 - Reading time: ~1 minute

Yesterday I had a machine that stopped booting after an update. What I didn't know was that during issues with yum update the LVM package was removed and after that the initramfs's (all of them) where regenerated. Which resulted in a machine that wasn't able to boot anymore.

The errors (list of search words, not actual since no log exists):

dracut-initqueue timeout
root does not exist
Starting dracut emergency shell
Entering emergency mode
dracut-initqueue[259]: Warning: dracut-initqueue timeout
dracut-initqueue[279] Warning: Could not boot
dracut-initqueue[279] Warning; /dev/mapper/rhel_...-root does not exit
in rescue mode
job timeout
Timed out waiting for dev-mapper-VG\LV.device
unable to mount logic volumes
vgchange missing
lvchange missing

This is how I solved it:

I started a live CD, configured the network and chrooted into the machine and ran (check kernel version and actual initramfs file):

lsinitrd -m –k /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-693.11.1.el7.x86_64.img | grep lvm (returned nothing)
yum install lvm2
dracut -f /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-693.11.1.el7.x86_64.img 3.10.0-693.11.1.el7.x86_64

Since this isn't standard behavior, you should check all services and make sure that your packages are consistent.

yum check all