# %e is depreciated ... yada yada

## moob7

So after a recent emerge, I noticed that during boot, I've got a new error message.  Everything seems to work so I suppose I could ignore it but the text bothers me.   :Wink: 

```
udevd-event[1177]: find_free_number: %e is depreciated, will be removed and is unlikey to work
```

Oddly enough, a search through these forums revealed nothing.  Usually when an error message has a typo (such as "unlikey"), it makes it easier to search.   :Wink:   Google also failed me (apparently it eats the "%" character and searches for e instead of %e).

A hunch made me suspect the udev rules files

I Checked in my my udev rules files in /etc/udev/rules.d and sure enough:

```

grep "%e" *

50-udev.rules:ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*",              SYMLINK+="cdrom%e", GROUP="cdrom"

50-udev.rules:ENV{ID_CDROM_CD_RW}=="?*",        SYMLINK+="cdrw%e"

50-udev.rules:ENV{ID_CDROM_DVD}=="?*",  SYMLINK+="dvd%e"

50-udev.rules:ENV{ID_CDROM_DVD_R}=="?*",        SYMLINK+="dvdrw%e"

```

What is odd is that the use of "%e" is in one of the "default" (means a file that emerge put there and that I never edited) rules files.

Even odder, the man page for udev has no mention of %e.

So I have three obvious solutions (pick one)

leave it.  if it ain't broke don't fix it

delete the four lines from 50-udev.rules and cross my fingers and hope 'puter don't go BOOM

find out wtf %e is and replace it with an equivalent that won't cause udev to bitch during boot  (so far this has been what I have been trying but without success)

Any ideas?  For now I'm following the first option  :Wink: 

update: google found this link but apparently they (in the link) haven't figured it out either:

http://www.gentooforum.de/post/64325/lastpost.html#post64325

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## desultory

What %e means, quoth man 8 udev:

 *Quote:*   

> %e, $enum
> 
>  If a device node already exists with the name, the smallest next free number is used. This can be used to create compatibility symlinks and enumerate devices of the same type originating from different kernel subsystems. 
> 
> Note: The use of the enumeration facility is unreliable for events that request a number at the same time. The use of enumerations in todays setups where devices can come and go at any time is not recomended. 

 

An oft used replacement, same source:

 *Quote:*   

> %n, $number
> 
>  The kernel number for this device. For example, 'sda3' has kernel number of '3'

 

For now, the first option makes most sense, unless you want to update sys-fs/udev which may or may not solve the problem.

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## moob7

 *Quote:*   

> What %e means, quoth man 8 udev:

 

This is a separate problem but:

```

$ man 8 udev

No entry for udev in section 8 of the manual

$

```

 *Quote:*   

> %n, $number
> 
>  The kernel number for this device. For example, 'sda3' has kernel number of '3'

 

Thank you.  This I will try (replacing all "%e" with "%n"). When next I reboot I will see if it works.

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## desultory

 *moob7 wrote:*   

> This is a separate problem but:
> 
> ```
> 
> $ man 8 udev
> ...

 

What version of udev are you using?

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## Mad Merlin

The udev manpage is found in section 7 for me, not 8. I'm using sys-fs/udev-087. It should be noted that 

```
man udev
```

 works also.

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## Paapaa

 *moob7 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> udevd-event[1177]: find_free_number: %e is depreciated, will be removed and is unlikey to work
> ```
> ...

 

You should try searching again with the word "find_free_number". Also, it is "deprecated" not "depreciated" - no wonder you found nothing   :Smile: 

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## dsd

you should leave %e as-is. the warning you see is not addressed to you, its addressed to the people who maintain the ebuilds.

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## mirojira

This is not the new problem. See

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-444874-highlight-udevevent.html

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## batistuta

 *dsd wrote:*   

> you should leave %e as-is. the warning you see is not addressed to you, its addressed to the people who maintain the ebuilds.

 

I really don't get this. Since when is a warning not addressed to the people reading that? Or are ebuild maintaners reading my monitor?   :Rolling Eyes: 

I really, I mean really don't wanna have that warning messing up my beautiful gensplash screen while I boot.

Other threads suggest replacing %e with %n in /etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules

Is this the solution?

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## desultory

The idea dsd appears to have been trying to convey is that this is an issue to be fixed by the maintainer of the affected udev rules, if you maintain a set of custom udev rules that could mean you but as a user you should be able to let the developers fix it. Which of course, begs the question: why not let the user update /etc/udev/rules/50-udev.rules locally and just accept the update when the developers fix it in sys-fs/udev?

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## evoweiss

Hi all,

Unfortunately, while I updated udev and ignored the messages, I had some problems with my DVD drives. Namely, while the second drive, a DVD burner, worked fine, the first was inaccessible as no device seemed to have been created. My temporary solution has been to downgrade udev to the previous version until the package maintainers fix what is wrong (I noticed this has been posted to bugs.gentoo.org). Is there any 'correct' solution to the problem at this time?

Best,

Alex

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## dsd

it's quite common for various processes to spit out messages which arent designed for the user (ever seen a QA Notice while emerging something? how about a warning from gcc?)

the upstream udev developers added that message as a method of informing all distros not to use %e

gentoo (i.e. downstream) now need to fix the rules

%n is probably not a suitable replacement for %e, because both /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd will have %n=0 (another example, both /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdb1 will have %n=1)

if you are that bothered by the message then you should remove the warning statement from udev, or go back to the stable tree (i dont think the message exists there - right?)

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## -fenice-

This message is displayed with the last stable release of udev...

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## batistuta

thanks guys for the clarification. At least I know that I shouldn't mess up the %e.

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## theoakwise

 *dsd wrote:*   

> if you are that bothered by the message then you should remove the warning statement from udev, or go back to the stable tree (i dont think the message exists there - right?)

 

I'm getting it with udev-087, which seems to be marked stable x86.

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## sesamsys

It is also the stable one for amd64, and I am getting the warnings too.  :Smile:  No messing up of gensplash for me, but it does look fairly nasty on a simple text boot too. I was frightened at the first time...  :Smile: 

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## Bob P

 *batistuta wrote:*   

>  *dsd wrote:*   you should leave %e as-is. the warning you see is not addressed to you, its addressed to the people who maintain the ebuilds. 
> 
> I really don't get this. Since when is a warning not addressed to the people reading that? Or are ebuild maintaners reading my monitor?  
> 
> I really, I mean really don't wanna have that warning messing up my beautiful gensplash screen while I boot.

 

I share your frustration.  I'm building a Live CD, and I don't want the error message showing up when my Live CD boots.  IMHO this is an ebuild QA issue, as this situation should have been resolved before the ebuild was marked stable.

It would appear that our only options are to:  a) live with it, b) manually edit udev to quash the output of the error message, or c)  nag the ebuild maintainer to get their act together.

Acoording to Bugzilla Alex's bug report was RESOLVED INVALID.  In other words, the developers expect you to live with it.   :Rolling Eyes:   Perhaps if @nesl247 could reopen the bug...

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## l3u

Living with it sucks.

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## evoweiss

 *Libby wrote:*   

> Living with it sucks.

 

Just realized one doesn't have to live with it! What I did was downgrade back to udev-079-r1 and then I re-upgraded back to udev-087, but the crucial thing is that I did not allow etc-update to change 50-udev.rules. Everything seems to be working ok now!

Hopefully the people maintaining it will fix this. I posted a bug report today, so my fingers are crossed.

Best,

Alex

----------

## evilshenaniganz

I was running into the same %e problem.  I edited three lines in my 50-udev.rules file-- If I recall correctly they were cdrom, dvd, and cdrw?  Anywho, I changed them to %n as desultory suggested and now udev doesn't bitch on setup.  This is *likey* the proper solution to this little problem.   :Smile: 

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## Phlogiston

I feel quite pissed because this is not fixed until this day   :Wink:  Why do the gentoo devs not just change the rules and update the package? It's such a small change...

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## dsd

change it to what? changing %e to %n is wrong and will not give the desired behaviour

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## Phlogiston

 *dsd wrote:*   

> change it to what? changing %e to %n is wrong and will not give the desired behaviour

 

Yes I read about it... Then blame the udev devs   :Cool: 

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## desultory

To clarify, I did not mean that %n would magically replace all of the features of %e, but it does provide a replacement in some cases (especially those where %e was, at least arguably, a poor solution in the first place), in other cases %n can be used as part of a solution to replace %e, though it would generally result in different node or link names, but %n is not a general replacement for %e. Hopefully dsd will no longer need to tell people that different features are different and will act differently, developers have enough to deal with.

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## przeuj

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> I share your frustration. I'm building a Live CD, and I don't want the error message showing up when my Live CD boots. IMHO this is an ebuild QA issue, as this situation should have been resolved before the ebuild was marked stable.
> 
> 

 

Maybe you can add a 'grep -v "unlikey to work"' to the scripts and you wont be bothered by this message.

I believe the issue is udev itself. In Gentoo its working so far -- so why fixing it? does anyone with the error message have had a problem after boot up? Just to clear up this thing as Im not sure if its just about the beauty of the boot up messages...

Bartek

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## seventhguardian

 *przeuj wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I believe the issue is udev itself. In Gentoo its working so far -- so why fixing it? does anyone with the error message have had a problem after boot up? Just to clear up this thing as Im not sure if its just about the beauty of the boot up messages...

 

Now I do! The warning doesn't appear anymore, but now the startup scripts complain that I don't have the support for udev, and that I should emerge it. I do have it emerged, so I supose there is a problem..

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## calle2003

 *seventhguardian wrote:*   

> Now I do! The warning doesn't appear anymore, but now the startup scripts complain that I don't have the support for udev, and that I should emerge it. I do have it emerged, so I supose there is a problem..

 

This is possibly related to bug 147221?

Anybody runninng udev or baselayout unstable without following the bug reports very closely is a brave man...

Regards,

Christian.

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## seventhguardian

Yes, it is solved now with udev-1.00-r2. Also the "event" messages disapeared, it now works perfectly  :Very Happy: 

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## Moebius

 *batistuta wrote:*   

>  *dsd wrote:*   you should leave %e as-is. the warning you see is not addressed to you, its addressed to the people who maintain the ebuilds. 
> 
> I really don't get this. Since when is a warning not addressed to the people reading that? Or are ebuild maintaners reading my monitor?  
> 
> I really, I mean really don't wanna have that warning messing up my beautiful gensplash screen while I boot.
> ...

 

OK, it's not that nice looking when you startup yous system, and some people might think that you're a "real newbie", so that you can't solve this issue, and who doesn't want to have a perfect running system ??? 

But: 

As long as this error leads to no problem on my system I can live with it.   :Cool: 

And:

I think that the developers of Gentoo DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB - i like it   :Laughing: 

And:

The Forum is also very useful, and the people are all quite friendly, and you get the best help....   :Very Happy: 

So, please don't forget that

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