# Mender-repopulate-inactive-partition breaks squashfs

**URL:** <https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-repopulate-inactive-partition-breaks-squashfs/7929>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Tags:** yocto, meta-mender\
**Created:** [July 30, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-repopulate-inactive-partition-breaks-squashfs/7929 "2025-07-30T21:45:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rcernea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3d9bf3/32.png) [@rcernea](https://hub.mender.io/u/rcernea)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-repopulate-inactive-partition-breaks-squashfs/7929/1 "2025-07-30T21:45:30Z")

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Hi,

It seems this issue is present in the kirkstone branch. The commit 24d2fe0c adds the line below in the file `meta-mender/meta-mender-core/classes/mender-part-images.bbclass`:

```shell
if [“${ARTIFACTIMG_FSTYPE}” = “squashfs” || ${@bb.utils.contains(‘MENDER_FEATURES’, ‘mender-prepopulate-inactive-partition’, ‘true’, ‘false’, d)}]; then

```

At runtime, this fails at the do\_image\_uefiimg step. The executed code looks like below:

```shell
    # By default the inactive partition filesystem is empty to allow for more efficient compression.
    # A full filesystem is populated if one of the following applies
    # - ARTIFACTIMG_FSTYPE is squashfs, because it doesn not allow empty partitions.
    # - the "mender-prepopulate-inactive-partition" MENDER_FEATURE is enabled
    if ["squashfs" = "squashfs" || false]; then
        part2_content="--source rawcopy --sourceparams=\"file=....../image-name-rt.squashfs\""
    else
        part2_content=
    fi

```

The code above is incorrect. Probably an easy fix is to use double [] for the if statement.

The commit before (ed0b3f7f) looks OK.

Additional info: I have a project based on the kirkstone branch, the file system is read-only (squashfs).

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Radu

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TheYoctoJester](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/hub.mender.io/theyoctojester/32/1444_2.png) [@TheYoctoJester](https://hub.mender.io/u/TheYoctoJester)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2025, 9:43am UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-repopulate-inactive-partition-breaks-squashfs/7929/2 "2025-07-31T09:43:51Z")

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Hi @rcernea,

Very good catch, thanks for reporting. The fix is already in flight as PR [fix: mender-part-images handling of inactive partition by TheYoctoJester · Pull Request #2297 · mendersoftware/meta-mender · GitHub](https://github.com/mendersoftware/meta-mender/pull/2297).

Can you confirm that it resolves the issue for you?

Greetz,  
Josef

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**Author:** ![TheYoctoJester](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/hub.mender.io/theyoctojester/32/1444_2.png) [@TheYoctoJester](https://hub.mender.io/u/TheYoctoJester)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2025, 7:29am UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-repopulate-inactive-partition-breaks-squashfs/7929/3 "2025-08-01T07:29:54Z")

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@rcernea just a short heads up, merged into the `master`, `scarthgap` and `kirkstone` branches.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rcernea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3d9bf3/32.png) [@rcernea](https://hub.mender.io/u/rcernea)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2025, 6:38pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-repopulate-inactive-partition-breaks-squashfs/7929/4 "2025-08-01T18:38:07Z")

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Hi @TheYoctoJester ! THank you for the quick response and fix. I can confirm, now it builds.