Related report with binary proof of initrd RAM corruption (2026)

We are seeing the same "Initramfs unpacking failed: ZSTD-compressed data is 
corrupt"
message under warm reboot stress, but with fatal consequences on a 
live+persistence
product (not desktop login continuing).

Environment:
- GRUB grub-efi-amd64-signed 2.06-2ubuntu14.8 (post LP #1842320 fix)
- linux-image-6.17.0-41-generic
- External initrd ~177 MiB from GRUB (/current/initrd)
- Dell OptiPlex AIO Plus 7410, 32 GB RAM, Secure Boot disabled

Symptoms (~16 reboot stress test):
- Intermittent: initramfs hang, "init not found", "Segmentation fault" stuck on 
screen
- Kernel ZSTD error on ~4/15 logged boots (boot sometimes continues)
- 1/16 boots hung with no userspace logs
- Sometimes boots despite errors — unknown runtime state

Critical finding (proven on failed boot):
overlay.ko extracted from on-disk initrd vs copy in runtime initramfs RAM:
- Same size: 484313 bytes
- MD5 differs; cmp -l shows exactly ONE byte different at offset 194603 (0x01 → 
0x00)
- insmod: "Key was rejected by service"; modprobe overlay fails
- Persistence overlay cannot mount; boot stops in initramfs

This suggests initrd contents are intermittently corrupted in RAM after GRUB 
load,
not merely a cosmetic embedded-initramfs ZSTD warning. GRUB 14.8 did not 
eliminate it.

Attachments and full analysis: [NEW BUG URL — add after filing]

Please consider this related to GRUB/initrd memory integrity issues discussed in
this bug. Filing separately because we have binary proof and fatal live-boot 
impact.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2007743

Title:
  intramfs Failed: ZSTD-compressed data

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