For many years I’ve enjoyed the reliability of the Ubuntu/Kubuntu Linux hibernate functionality (just the opposite of Windows). However, today it actually failed. When I powered up the system, it didn’t resume from the swap file. Instead, it just booted up as if I had previously killed the power.

Upon checking into the problem, I noticed that the UUID for the swap partition had changed. I don’t know why. After much hunting and trial-and-error, I was able to reinitialize the swap partition, update the necessary config files and get the system to resume from hibernate once again.

1. First, you need to know the /dev path to your swap file (e.g. /dev/hda2). If you don’t know what it is, take a look inside the /etc/fstab file. In the recent versions of Ubuntu, there is a comment above each device’s UUID entry to tell you what path it points to. Look for a line with

UUID=a-bunch-of-letters-and-numbers none swap sw 0 0

On the line above it should be a comment that says what partition it is (e.g. # /dev/hda2)

Now, armed with that information, do the following:

2. sudo mkswap /dev/your-swap-partition
For /dev/your-swap-partition, fill in the swap partition path you found in the /etc/fstab file. This will reinitialize your swap partition and create a new UUID. Copy down the new UUID (e.g. copy it to the clipboard).

3. sudo gedit /etc/fstab
Look for the same UUID= line from step #1 (the one for your swap partition). Replace the existing UUID value with the new one that you copied in step #2. Then, save the file.

4. sudo gedit /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume
Replace the old UUID value that appears after RESUME=UUID= in the file with the new value from step #2. Save.

5. cd /dev/disk/by-uuid
This directory contains symlinks from UUIDs to actual partitions.

6. sudo rm your-old-UUID
Enter the old UUID for the swap partition in place of your-old-UUID. This will remove the old, incorrect symlink.

7. sudo ln -s ../../your-swap-partition your-new-UUID
Now, create a new symlink from your swap partition to the new UUID.

8. sudo swapon -va
This will mount the swap partition based on the UUID settings you entered. If it succeeds, you didn’t make any mistakes. If it fails, then you need to verify that you have the correct UUID and partitions in the steps above.

9. sudo update-initramfs -u
This will create a new initramfs image. When it’s done, you’ll be able to hibernate and resume again.

That was a really weird problem. Thanks to a combination of techniques from these two sources, I was able to get it back to normal:

Suddenly my swap drive was missing
Kubuntu Edgy: swap failed when awaken from hibernate