Re: GRUB really slow to boot
Hi,
This is most likely a failing disk.
Please post the output of:
smartctl -a /dev/sda
or whatever your disk device name is, if not sda
Kind Regards
James
On Sat, 18 Dec 2021 at 16:09, Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:
>
> Today I rebooted my machine for the first time in quite a while, after
> the kernel update that was released along with Debian 11.2.
>
> When it reached the GRUB screen, I pressed Enter, and nothing happened
> as far as I could see. I was initially worried that it had stopped
> seeing my USB keyboard (a thing that I've experienced with GRUB and
> certain USB slots on certain machines in the past). This keyboard
> plugged into this same USB slot had worked in previous versions of GRUB
> on this machine, though.
>
> The next thing I observed was that after 5 seconds, it still hadn't
> booted, nor had the coundown ("will automatically boot in 5s" or whatever)
> advanced. It appeared to be hung.
>
> I waited a bit longer, and the 5s changed to 4s. It just took a really
> long time (like 15+ seconds for each second on the timer).
>
> Eventually, after a minute or two, the system booted. Everything is
> working normally now, post-GRUB.
>
> Has anyone experienced this, or does anyone have ideas about how to
> prevent it happening again? I am not interested in trial and error
> for this, because it's far too annoying and disruptive. But if there
> are well-known ideas about things I could try (e.g. "grub 2.04 is known
> to have bugs on Intel motherboards, revert to 2.03") then I'm game.
>
> I Googled it, and the only hits I found were for people reporting slow
> interactivity with GRUB on high-resolution displays. I don't think my
> monitor is high resolution, and this has NEVER been a problem on ANY
> previous boot, with this same computer and monitor. I have not changed
> any hardware. Only software versions. (Of course, I can't rule out
> hardware going bad.)
>
> Here's the monitor, from xdpyinfo:
>
> screen #0:
> dimensions: 1920x1080 pixels (508x285 millimeters)
> resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
>
> Here's the other hardware:
>
> unicorn:~$ lspci -nn
> 00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [8086:591f] (rev 05)
> 00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6th-10th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) [8086:1901] (rev 05)
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 630 [8086:5912] (rev 04)
> 00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 200 Series/Z370 Chipset Family USB 3.0 xHCI Controller [8086:a2af]
> 00:15.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0 [8086:a2e0]
> 00:15.1 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #1 [8086:a2e1]
> 00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH CSME HECI #1 [8086:a2ba]
> 00:17.0 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH SATA controller [AHCI mode] [8086:a282]
> 00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH PCI Express Root Port #5 [8086:a294] (rev f0)
> 00:1d.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH PCI Express Root Port #15 [8086:a29e] (rev f0)
> 00:1e.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 200 Series/Z370 Chipset Family Serial IO UART Controller #0 [8086:a2a7]
> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH LPC Controller (H270) [8086:a2c4]
> 00:1f.2 Memory controller [0580]: Intel Corporation 200 Series/Z370 Chipset Family Power Management Controller [8086:a2a1]
> 00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH HD Audio [8086:a2f0]
> 00:1f.4 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 200 Series/Z370 Chipset Family SMBus Controller [8086:a2a3]
> 02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 10)
> 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168NGW [Stone Peak] [8086:24fb] (rev 10)
>
> Here's the GRUB versions:
>
> unicorn:~$ dpkg -l grub\* | grep -v ^un
> Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
> | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
> |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
> ||/ Name Version Architecture Description
> +++-=====================-============-============-=================================================================
> ii grub-common 2.04-20 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files)
> ii grub-efi-amd64 2.04-20 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (EFI-AMD64 version)
> ii grub-efi-amd64-bin 2.04-20 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (EFI-AMD64 modules)
> ii grub-efi-amd64-signed 1+2.04+20 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (amd64 UEFI signed by Debian)
> ii grub2-common 2.04-20 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files for version 2)
>
> The last time I booted, when everything was normal:
>
> reboot system boot 5.10.0-10-amd64 Sat Dec 18 06:17 still running
> [...]
> reboot system boot 5.10.0-9-amd64 Sat Oct 9 11:38 - 10:14 (69+23:36)
>
> According to /var/log/dpkg.log.5.gz GRUB was updated to version 2.04-20
> back in July, so the current version of GRUB was in place for both boots.
> Which I guess makes this either an intermittent problem, or a failing
> hardware problem, or it's caused by some package whose name doesn't
> begin with "grub".
>
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