Debian 9 Iso hangs forever at INFO Probing 'constitution.txt'!

[COLABORATI]

This iso:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/9.4.0+nonfree/amd64/iso-dvd/firmware-9.4.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso

will hang forever after copying files to usb. usb is formatted with ext4, host system Ubuntu 18.04, latest release of your software just downloaded today. relevant part of log:

19:33:54.868 root INFO Updating distro specific config files...
19:33:54.908 root INFO Applied 2 rewrite exceptions on '/media/user/MULTIBOOT/multibootusb/debian-firmware-9.4.0-amd64-DVD-1/install.amd/xen/debian.cfg' as shown below:
19:33:54.908 root INFO   /usr/share/doc/xen-utils-common/examples is kept as is. [1]
19:33:54.908 root INFO   /home/bozo/.Xauthority is kept as is. [1]
19:33:55.007 root INFO In '/media/user/MULTIBOOT/multibootusb/debian-firmware-9.4.0-amd64-DVD-1/boot/grub/grub.cfg', '/isolinux/splash.png;' is kept as is though it does not exist.
19:34:07.326 root INFO Updating multibootusb config file...
19:34:08.034 root INFO Using boot/grub/x86_64-efi/grub.cfg to boot this distro.
19:34:08.034 root INFO Updating grub.cfg file...
19:34:08.035 root INFO size of the ISO is 3.4G
19:34:11.058 root INFO Updated entry in grub.cfg...
19:34:11.059 root INFO Probing 'README.mirrors.txt'!
19:34:11.060 root INFO Probing 'md5sum.txt'!
19:34:11.074 root INFO Probing 'README.txt'!
19:34:11.075 root INFO Probing 'f7.txt'!
19:34:11.075 root INFO Probing 'f9.txt'!
19:34:11.075 root INFO Probing 'f3.txt'!
19:34:11.075 root INFO Probing 'f4.txt'!
19:34:11.075 root INFO Probing 'f6.txt'!
19:34:11.076 root INFO Probing 'f8.txt'!
19:34:11.076 root INFO Probing 'f10.txt'!
19:34:11.076 root INFO Probing 'f1.txt'!
19:34:11.077 root INFO Probing 'f5.txt'!
19:34:11.077 root INFO Probing 'f2.txt'!
19:34:11.178 root INFO Probing 'loadlin.txt'!
19:34:11.179 root INFO Probing 'bug-mailserver-refcard.txt'!
19:34:11.179 root INFO Probing 'mailing-lists.txt'!
19:34:11.181 root INFO Probing 'constitution.txt'!

[COLABORATI]

same problem with the 'official' netinstall iso from here: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/9.4.0/amd64/iso-cd/debian-9.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso

[COLABORATI]

Also after this happens, it is not possible to add any other distro to the usb stick - the process then hangs forever at Updating multibootusb config file... - only way I found was to reformat the usb stick and start over again adding distros... well, besides digging deeper and trying to understand what exactly went wrong.

Please, please improve the error handling on these kind of things. Add a timer that cleans up after no progress when it happens and also make the syslinux write clean defaults when left in an unclean state. Thank you very much for your efforts, I know this is a lot of work!

It would be very nice if you would like to support one of the most used Linux distros - adding the debian netinstall iso was the first thing I tried.

[shinji-s]

Mbusb is likely choking on the text file (constitution.txt) because it can't be converted into unicode. The fix was too late to arrive for the release. (Sorry, that bug was mine.) Please try the version at https://github.com/mbusb/multibootusb/ . (Either branch, master or devel, will do but it would be easier for me to assist if you use devel) Or you may remaster the iso to remove the offending text file. Note that installer will fail to mount /cdrom and refuses to continue installation unless you mount manually. See https://github.com/mbusb/multibootusb/issues/262

[shinji-s]

only way I found was to reformat the usb stick and start

When you encounter a similar situation again, try deleting /multibootusb/{the-distro-you-tried-to-install}. You should be able to retry installation without restarting from scratch.