Not sure if it's exactly related, but the 4.1-8 → 4.1-9 mdadm update causes grub and initramfs-tools to fail. eg:
--------- root@david-pc:/tmp# apt dist-upgrade Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Calculating upgrade... Done The following packages will be upgraded: mdadm 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/457 kB of archives. After this operation, 2,048 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Retrieving bug reports... Done Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done serious bugs of mdadm (4.1-8 → 4.1-9) <Outstanding> b1 - #974829 - 4.1-9 tries to copy non-existing /usr/bin/rm (proper location is /bin/rm) Summary: mdadm(1 bug) Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages? [Y/n/?/...] Reading changelogs... Done Preconfiguring packages ... (Reading database ... 291745 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../archives/mdadm_4.1-9_amd64.deb ... Unpacking mdadm (4.1-9) over (4.1-8) ... Setting up mdadm (4.1-9) ... update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) Generating grub configuration file ... Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.9.0-2-amd64 Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.9.0-2-amd64 Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p2@ /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration done update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.3-2) ... Processing triggers for systemd (246.6-2) ... Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.139) ... update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.9.0-2-amd64 E: /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/mdadm failed with return 1. update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.9.0-2-amd64 with 1. dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure): installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: initramfs-tools E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) --------- Downgrading mdadm fixes things again, eg: ---------- root@david-pc:/tmp# apt install mdadm/testing Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Selected version '4.1-8' (Debian:testing [amd64]) for 'mdadm' Suggested packages: dracut-core The following packages will be DOWNGRADED: mdadm 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 457 kB of archives. After this operation, 2,048 B disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Get:1 http://ftp.is.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 mdadm amd64 4.1-8 [457 kB] Fetched 457 kB in 2s (200 kB/s) Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: warning: downgrading mdadm from 4.1-9 to 4.1-8 (Reading database ... 291745 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../archives/mdadm_4.1-8_amd64.deb ... Unpacking mdadm (4.1-8) over (4.1-9) ... Setting up initramfs-tools (0.139) ... update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) Setting up mdadm (4.1-8) ... update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) Generating grub configuration file ... Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.9.0-2-amd64 Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.9.0-2-amd64 Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p2@ /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration done update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.3-2) ... Processing triggers for systemd (246.6-2) ... Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.139) ... update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.9.0-2-amd64 root@david-pc:/tmp# ----------
