System fails to boot and shows multipath error messages after updating kernel

Issue

• After updating the kernel from kernel-2.6.32-454.el6 (or earlier) to kernel-2.6.32-455.el6 (or later), systems with multipathed root and boot ATA devices fail to boot and show multipath: error getting device messages:

  kernel: device-mapper: table: 253:XX: multipath: error getting device
  kernel: device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table
  [...]
  dracut Warning: Boot has failed. To debug this issue add "rdshell" to the kernel command line.
  dracut Warning: Signal caught!
  dracut Warning: Boot has failed. To debug this issue add "rdshell" to the kernel command line.
  Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
  Call Trace:
  [c0000007fb613b10] [c000000000012ef4] .show_stack+0x74/0x1c0 (unreliable)
  [c0000007fb613bc0] [c0000000005e5a0c] .panic+0xc4/0x1f8
  [c0000007fb613c50] [c00000000009b5fc] .do_exit+0x87c/0x880
  [c0000007fb613d30] [c00000000009b650] .do_group_exit+0x50/0xf0
  [c0000007fb613dc0] [c00000000009b704] .SyS_exit_group+0x14/0x30
  [c0000007fb613e30] [c000000000008564] syscall_exit+0x0/0x40