Initramfs not created after update

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1

Hello peeps, I am having a problem after doing some updates.

Context

I usually do updates every Saturday. It was after May 10, 2025 that this problem started to occur for me. I do just the normal flatpak update and then sudo dnf update.

The Problem

After May 10, 2025 I started to have a Kernel Panic error every time I turn on or reboot my laptop. Thankfully I just reboot and select the previous Fedora 42 kernel version (6.14.4-300.fc42.x86_64) via GRUB. The problem seems to be occurring on just kernel version 6.14.5-300.fc42.x86_64 since it is the default boot now, plus every time I select it manually it does a Kernel Panic

EDIT

I forgot to include the error stack trace:
error: ../../grub-core/fs/fshelp.c:257:file '/initramfs-6.14.5-300.fc42.x86_64.img' not found

Potential Solutions

I found a discussion which had a similar problem. However, after trying their fix suggestions I could not solve the problem.

System Details Report

Report details

  • Date generated: 2025-05-12 10:06:52

Hardware Information:

  • Hardware Model: HP HP Laptop 14-dq2xxx
  • Memory: 8.0 GiB
  • Processor: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i3-1125G4 Ă— 8
  • Graphics: Intel® UHD Graphics (TGL GT2)
  • Disk Capacity: 256.1 GB

Software Information:

  • Firmware Version: F.21
  • OS Name: Fedora Linux 42 (Workstation Edition)
  • OS Build: (null)
  • OS Type: 64-bit
  • GNOME Version: 48
  • Windowing System: Wayland
  • Kernel Version: Linux 6.14.4-300.fc42.x86_64
3

Can you post the panic details? Often the stack trace of the panic points to a possible cause.

4

Oh right, apologies. I am going to edit the post as well. Here you go:

error: ../../grub-core/fs/fshelp.c:257:file '/initramfs-6.14.5-300.fc42.x86_64.img' not found

5

That is not a kernel panic. This is a error message from grub.

I am going to guess that you use dkms or akmods to build kernel modules. Must likely the dkms/akmods build is failing.

When it fails other people report initramfs will not be created.
You can tell dracut to build the initramfs that is missing and I think you will see an error messasge.

When a new kernel is released it is common the out of tree kernel modules can fail to build until the source is updated.

1 Like
6

FYI I changed the title to reflect the issue, I hope that was useful.

1 Like
7

I will check this out. That said, the kernel panic screen appears after that error message. I admit I am not a linux professional and I currently don’t build kernel modules; I just use Fedora Workstation as a normal user. So, idk if those two things (the grub error and the kernel panic) are related.

Thanks for the feedback, tips, and your time.

8

If the initramfs is missing and grub starts the kernel, the kernel will report that the initramfs is missing and stop (likely by panicing).

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9

Correct, I solved it using the solution for this discussion. I didn’t do it with the correct kernel version before, so it seemed like it didn’t worked; but it does :smile: