Same problem after trying to update device-mapper 2.02.138-1 -> 2.02.141-1. Downgraded it, mkinitcpio -p linux -> initramfs bugged no boot, deleting /boot/initramfs*, then mkinitcpio -p linux, reboot initramfs working again

Same with mkinitcpio: mkinitcpio 18-2 -> 19-1

content of df -h just to say that /boot is not full and is mounted:

-> $ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
dev 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /dev
run 3.9G 864K 3.9G 1% /run
/dev/mapper/vgcrypt-root 24G 19G 3.7G 84% /
tmpfs 3.9G 8.1M 3.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/vgcrypt-home 192G 151G 32G 83% /home
/dev/sda1 197M 108M 90M 55% /boot
tmpfs 3.9G 5.4M 3.9G 1% /tmp
/dev/mapper/data 408G 349G 38G 91% /data

UPDATE: I think the problem at the end is not lvm2. In fact if my initramfs-linux.img is booting, whenever I update it with mkinitcpio -p linux, then it's not booting anymore. The size of the binary grow everytime I type sudo mkinitcpio -p linux. Yes my /boot is mounted and yes my /boot has plenty of space. my / has also like 4G free as well.
What can I do ? Did I need to open an other bug ? I'm really lost with this issue, I'm trying to solve it since 00h00 yesterday. I tested ton of solution with help of #archlinux and I'm really stuck.

The only way to get back a sain system is: downgrade kernel-4.3.3-1/headers/linux-firmware/virtualbox-host-modules/lvm2/devmapper/mkinicpio, then rm /boot/initramfs*, removing "intel_agp i915" in .conf, mkinitcpio -p linux, adding back intel+i915, mkinitcpio -p linux, then initramfs is booting I'm lost. please Help

When doing a lsinitcpio -x with old and new, diffing it, they are the same. When doing stat on it, they new grows at each new mkinitcpio -p linux command. So could be the compression of the initrmafs that goes wrong and that's why I get this problem of initramfs bloated ?

So further research shows that with one initramfs that didn't work and one that did work, after lsinitcpio -x, and diff -r, they are exactly the same. So something resides in the compression...

I tested with compression=cat, same issue

I can't reproduce the growing image size -- it just varies:

$ while true; do mkinitcpio --config ./mkinitcpio.conf -g foo.img &>/dev/null && stat -c %s foo.img; done
8658585
8658813
8658803
8658857
8658761
8658928
8658833
8658743
8658819
...

The above implies gzip, but this is true of other compression methods that I tried: lz4, xz, lzop, and bzip2

Without compression, the image size remains constant between runs.

> I tested with compression=cat, same issue
There's now a lot of context in this bug report -- what precisely do you mean by this?

I mean even with cat, so no compression right ?, the only way to make a initramfs bootable is: downgrade kernel-4.3.3-1/headers/linux-firmware/virtualbox-host-modules/lvm2/devmapper/mkinicpio, then rm /boot/initramfs*, mkinicpio -p linux, removing "intel_agp i915" in .conf, mkinitcpio -p linux, adding back intel+i915, mkinitcpio -p linux, then initramfs is booting.

After this, if I retype mkinitcpio -p linux, then initramfs is not booting anymore. After lsinitcpio -x both old and new initramfs, diffing, they are the same.

Sometimes I get even stranger error for initramfs: https://imgur.com/m1Jaab0

I'm sorry because their is many, many information, but I tested almost everything, like fsck of all the fs, removing the noauto,x-systemd.autumount for the /boot, pacman -Syu but everything is a dead end until now.

"Premature end of file /vmlinuz-linux" <-- this can't possibly be something which mkinitcpio is responsible for.

Is this some aging hard drive?

You are right. The latest imgur happend after upgrading the kernel. To be honest I can't really remember, I get so much error at boot with this mkinitcpio story.

Not so aging,less than 1 year. It's a Samsung 850pro SSD 256GB.

smartctl output attached

Trim is enable with systemd fstrim timer.

Dave Which other info can I give to you to help me understand what's going wrong ?

If you can reproduce this without compression enabled, then please do a bytewise comparison (cmp might be a good place to start) of a working and non-working image. If there's a difference, please make both images available for download.

Ok will do this tomorrow and keep you posted.

Ok I solved it finally.
I formated my /boot and recopying my stuff. Then it was booting, then pacman -Syu and all is ok. You can close all my bug.
Thanks for help anyway Dave :D