Bug#907175: 4.9.0-8-686-pae swapon failed invalid argument

[William Salmon <will.salmon@newcastle.ac.uk>]

Hi
We are also getting this bug where swapon failed at boot with latest kernel 4.9.0-8-686-pae on 32bit i386  Debian 9.4 VMs on VMware VM version 11 on ESX 6.0

I get this in syslog:
swapon[319]: swapon: /dev/sdb1: swapon failed: Invalid argument

Fixed it for now by downgrading metapackage linux-image-686-pae to previous version as follows:

apt-get install linux-image-686-pae=4.9+80+deb9u5

which auto installs:  linux-image-4.9.0-7-686-pae:i386

Then I did :
apt-get remove linux-image-4.9.0-8-686-pae
and re-booted 

HELP!
Does anyone know how to pin the metapackage so unattended-upgrades does not re-install :
	linux-image-686-pae:i386=4.9+80+deb9u6
	and the faulty linux-image-4.9.0-8-686-pae

Thanks
Will Salmon, 
Systems & Infrastructure Support Officer (Linux servers), 
Faculty of Medical Sciences, Learning Technology Support Unit,
Ridley Building 1 (floor 3)
Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU
(0191) 208 4539  :  E-mail: will.salmon@ncl.ac.uk