Bug 436285

Summary:	can't get past grub boot after offline update on thinkpad
Product:	[KDE Neon] neon	Reporter:	kinghat <madLyfe>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Neon Bugs <neon-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	critical	CC:	jr, kishore96, mchugh19, nate, neceh007, neon-bugs-null, sitter
Priority:	VHI
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Neon
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description kinghat 2021-04-27 23:58:41 UTC

SUMMARY
after latest offline update a number of users on thinkpads can't get past grub on boot. reports here: https://www.reddit.com/r/kdeneon/comments/mzq2fh/black_screen_after_system_upgrade/


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. have neon on thinkpad
2. install latest offline update(like 112MB)
3. restart when asked

OBSERVED RESULT
stuck at grub boot screen

EXPECTED RESULT
boot fully to DE

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: 
macOS: 
Linux/KDE Plasma: 
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 
KDE Frameworks Version: 
Qt Version: 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 Neceh 2021-04-28 00:25:48 UTC

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: Windows 10 Pro
macOS: 
Linux/KDE Plasma: Latest offline update as of 28-4-2021 (today)
KDE Plasma Version: 
KDE Frameworks Version: 
Qt Version: 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

System specs:
Lenovo W520 SSD (neon) + HDD (win10)

Stuck on grub, no matter what input it just sits there. Hitting left/right arrow key makes grub boot menu go blank. Booting windows also doesn't work.

Not using LUKS, besides would expect windows to normally load if it was a luks issue.

Comment 2 Neceh 2021-04-28 00:54:45 UTC

Booting from a live usb stick using the following (in my case)

ls (hd1,msdos8)/
set root=(hd1,gpt1)
set prefix=(hd1,gpt2)/efi/neon/
insmod linux
insmod normal
normal

Displayed my normal grub boot menu. Using that im back in KDE neon. Using a update-grub and rebooting does not fix it.

Comment 3 kinghat 2021-04-28 16:14:13 UTC

turns out my /boot directory was empty after that update. after booting from a neon live cd and running boot-repair i was able to successfully boot back into my main, encrypted neon install.

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2021-04-28 19:37:18 UTC

eek

Comment 5 Neceh 2021-04-30 05:25:34 UTC

A grub issue if you ask me, my boot files were fine though. Why it failed and a update-grub didn't work I can't tell. reinstalling grub fixed it, but i did not check and verify grub version numbers. Again a update-grub only did not solve the issue so i guess there's a different version.

Comment 6 kinghat 2021-05-06 18:24:59 UTC

just had this happen again to me after the 5.21.5 updates that rolled through today 😭

Comment 7 kinghat 2021-05-06 18:33:54 UTC

i have an idea why this might be happening to me. a while back, before the offline updates were introduced, i was having to manually clear out older kernels because it wasnt being done and i kept getting errors in discover about running out of space when there were updates to install newer kernels. i just manually purged the old ones because i didnt want to reinstall the os or fix whatever the issue was by resizing things and possibly permanently breaking something.

now that the offline updates are are thing i think this issue is happening but its uglier because its during boot and fails in an uglier way. i dont know why its leaving /boot empty, though.

here is my current kernel list:

$ dpkg --list | egrep -i --color 'linux-image|linux-headers|linux-modules' | awk '{ print $2 }'
linux-headers-5.4.0-72
linux-headers-5.4.0-72-generic
linux-headers-5.8.0-45-generic
linux-headers-5.8.0-48-generic
linux-headers-5.8.0-49-generic
linux-headers-5.8.0-50-generic
linux-headers-generic
linux-headers-generic-hwe-20.04
linux-image-5.8.0-45-generic
linux-image-5.8.0-48-generic
linux-image-5.8.0-49-generic
linux-image-5.8.0-50-generic
linux-image-generic-hwe-20.04
linux-modules-5.8.0-45-generic
linux-modules-5.8.0-48-generic
linux-modules-5.8.0-49-generic
linux-modules-5.8.0-50-generic
linux-modules-extra-5.8.0-45-generic
linux-modules-extra-5.8.0-48-generic
linux-modules-extra-5.8.0-49-generic
linux-modules-extra-5.8.0-50-generic

Comment 8 Neceh 2021-05-07 03:34:17 UTC

(In reply to kinghat from comment #6)
> just had this happen again to me after the 5.21.5 updates that rolled
> through today 😭

Same again here too 😭😭😭

Comment 9 kinghat 2021-05-12 03:46:53 UTC

i removed all of my older kernels to test my theory about there not being enough room for more kernels during the update process, and somehow leaving my /boot dir empty, was partially confirmed with the recent 5.8.0-53-generic update. the update went fine 🤷‍♂️

Comment 10 mchugh19@yahoo.com 2021-09-14 12:40:13 UTC

I also had an issue with getting only a black screen after selecting neon from efi prompt after an offline update. In my case, I was able to boot off the neon live usb environment, install repair-boot, and run it to fix whatever was messed up in the efi/grub setup.

Comment 11 Kishore Gopalakrishnan 2022-09-03 11:32:19 UTC

Marking as duplicate. Please change the status if you can reproduce the issue with discover >= 5.26.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 457868 ***