Bug 2412714

Summary:	False FAIL on media check with Fedora Workstation 43 USB (verified ISO & checksum)
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Yassin Omer <yassinomer2002>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	anaconda-maint
Status:	CLOSED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	43	CC:	a.badger, alpha, anaconda-maint, kkoukiou, kparal, w
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Bugfix, Upgrades
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2025-11-06 08:01:33 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Yassin Omer 2025-11-05 16:16:02 UTC

I am getting a media check failure when booting a Fedora Workstation 43 USB installer, even though the ISO is verified and clean.

However the ISO hash matches Fedora’s official SHA256 and GPG signature, so the image is definitely good. This appears to be a false failure.

Hardware:
ADATA USB 3.2 drive
Laptop model: TOSHIBA Satellite C850-B561
Boot mode: UEFI

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Downloaded Fedora Workstation 43 from official website
2. Verified GPG signature
3. Verified SHA256 checksum
4. Flashed USB using Fedora Media Writer
5. Also tested flashing with Balena Etcher (same result)
6. Booted from USB

Actual Results:
Fragment sums : 885bbc333a2b8d9c833373b2a14cd5f4610d9e9c3885694c89127bd9aaf6
Fragment count: 20
Supported ISO: no
Press [Esc] to abort check.
Checking: 004.8%
The media check is complete, the result is: FAIL.
It is not recommended to use this media
[FAILED] Failed to start checkisond5 - Media check on /dev/sdb.
Job for checkisond5 failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status checkisond5" and "journalctl -xeu checkisond5" for details
Warning: Media check failed? We do not recommend using this medium. System will halt in 12 hours.

Expected Results:
Media check should pass when ISO checksum is valid, or at least not falsely fail a verified image.

Notes: The live environment still boots if I skip the media test. Looks like the media check tool is incorrectly flagging valid media.

Additional Information:
# System Details Report
---

## Report details
- **Date generated:**                              2025-11-05 22:10:51

## Hardware Information:
- **Hardware Model:**                              TOSHIBA Satellite C850-B561
- **Memory:**                                      8.0 GiB
- **Processor:**                                   Intel® Core™ i3-2328M × 4
- **Graphics:**                                    Intel® HD Graphics 3000 (SNB GT2)
- **Disk Capacity:**                               128.0 GB

## Software Information:
- **Firmware Version:**                            6.10
- **OS Name:**                                     Fedora Linux 43 (Workstation Edition)
- **OS Build:**                                    (null)
- **OS Type:**                                     64-bit
- **GNOME Version:**                               49
- **Windowing System:**                            Wayland
- **Kernel Version:**                              Linux 6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64

Comment 1 Brian Lane 2025-11-05 17:25:26 UTC

You don't need to use a media writer, Fedora's iso images are hybrid and are suitable for directly writing them to the USB device using dd. It is likely that these writers are doing more than just copying the iso to the device which is why the media check fails. Try using the instructions here to write the usb drive - https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/creating-and-using-a-live-installation-image/#_using_a_direct_write_method

Comment 2 Kamil Páral 2025-11-06 08:01:33 UTC

FMW is the number one official method to create a USB image, working across OSes. It's heavily tested and it's working correctly.

The 4.8% verification failure is well known, but we don't know how to avoid it:
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/install-media-sometimes-fail-media-check-at-4-8/108478

Since yassinomer2002 isn't writing it on Windows, the most likely case is that the actual PC firmware is writing data to the stick (possibly to ESP) before booting it. It should be safe to ignore this error.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 2269373 ***