Problem:

Migrating my good old Debian etch installation to VirtualBox guest I stumbled across a resume script error on boot:

resume: could not stat the resume device file

Hitting Enter boots normally, ignoring the missing resume image, but it’s a no-go for production use.

Solution:

The problem occurs when the userspace suspend cannot find the swap partition due to configuration errors. In my case it was quite straightforward as the migration process involved some partitions being merged and other kind of disk juggling.

Fixing methods in this case are multifold:

• remove uswsusp package (that’s what I’ve done – with VirtualBox savestate, guest hibernation is a bit redundant)

or

• correct the /etc/uswsusp.conf file – make sure the ‘resume device = /dev/hdX’ line is correct
• dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp

If you have problems with swap partitions not being found – try using labels (read more here). One more thing to note – uswsusp doesn’t handle swap files graciously, so if you don’t have a real swap partition (I use swap files for my VirtualBox guests) removing it can be the easiest way.