Hangs at 100% encryption of a volume on Linux, no "mk" process (ie formatting) nor activity in "top"

[CBlueGH]

nor any status messages or progress info inside the actual program gui.

[idrassi]

Reaching 100% in the volume creation progress doesn't necessarily mean that the whole operation has completed. VeraCrypt still has to write final headers and flush data to disk, and flushing data can take very long time if Quick Format is disabled and the volume size is very large.
The external mkfs.* formatter is started only after this step, and only for non-FAT filesystems. If the selected filesystem is FAT or None, no mkfs.* process is expected.

That being said, there is a valid UX/UI issue: the GUI currently doesn't clearly show the post-100% stages such as flushing data to disk, mounting the temporary volume and creating the filesystem.

Can you please provide:

• whether this is a file container or a partition/device
• volume size
• selected filesystem
• whether Quick Format was enabled

[idrassi]

I will look into improving the volume creation wizard so it reports post-100% stages such as:

• writing backup header
• flushing data to disk
• preparing temporary device
• creating filesystem using mkfs.*
• dismounting temporary volume

For example, we can have a progress indicator and a message that reads "Finalizing volume creation: flushing data to disk. This can take several minutes on large volumes or slow/USB storage."

This should make the operation much less confusing and avoid the impression that VeraCrypt has silently hung at 100%.

[CBlueGH]

Thank you,

• medium: USB3 stick
• file container
• 32GB (aka "use all available space" check box)
• ext3 (intended for use with Linux only)
• no quick format iirc, ie I left it at the default settings, not changing this

avoid the impression that VeraCrypt has silently hung at 100%.

No need to make things complicated, just dispay 99.99% as maximum

[idrassi]

I pushed f883709 to address this.

The change adds explicit status updates for the finalization steps after progress reaches 100%, including writing the backup header, flushing data to disk and the Linux/macOS temporary mount/device/filesystem steps. This should make it clear that VeraCrypt is still working instead of appearing stuck at 100%.

@alphaoumeric adding such status updates was not complicated and I think it can also help diagnose future issues by knowing exactly what's happening under the hood.

I’m attaching a short video of file container creation showing all the steps displayed after 100% is reached:

Screen.Recording.2026-05-03.111819.mp4