Bug 464869

I reproduced this today in a libvirt/KVM virtual machine, using neon-testing-20230207-0250.iso as the install medium.

I used Discover to start the update sequence.
After rebooting, I was presented with a completely black screen for a few minutes.
The black screen was eventually replaced with a (Plymouth?) software update screen with a spinning gear.
When the updates finished installing, it rebooted to the grub menu, as seen in the screen shot.
Selecting either Neon or Advanced Options from the grub menu caused a reboot, and a return to the grub menu.
Selecting memtest from the grub menu caused a system freeze.

This issue reproduces on nearly every time updates are installed. Especially when Discover reports "System upgrades" to be available, and those get installed.

Afterwards, the boot sequence ends up into Grub menu and selecting any boot option there causes a freeze. Issue is recoverable, by using Boot Repair disc, but you can hardly call this a usable OS, while having such issues.


SYSTEM INFORMATION

Operating System: KDE neon 5.27
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.104.0
Qt Version: 5.15.8
Kernel Version: 5.19.0-38-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-7820HQ CPU @ 2.90GHz
Memory: 22,7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: SVGA3D; build: RELEASE; LLVM;
Manufacturer: innotek GmbH
Product Name: VirtualBox
System Version: 1.2

(In reply to Lassi Väätämöinen from comment #2)
> This issue reproduces on nearly every time updates are installed. Especially
> when Discover reports "System upgrades" to be available, and those get
> installed.

Now upgraded kernel to 5.19.0-41.

The issue happens systematically, when there is a "system upgrade" that ends up into post-boot KDE Neon splash screen with "Installing updates XX%" During this upgrade the Grub gets corrupt. Every time.

Not sure if these issues with Breeze Grub theme are related:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kdeneon/comments/z0vf4h/kde_neon_update_replaced_grub_with_broken_version/
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/8nkzvs/neon_seems_hardwired_to_look_for_breeze_grub/

For what it's worth, I don't even seem to have the Breeze theme on my system (after running Boot Repair Disc, which is a must with KDE Neon...)

$ cat /etc/default/grub.d/99_breeze-grub.cfg 
GRUB_THEME=/boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt

$ sudo ls /boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt
ls: cannot access '/boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt': No such file or directory


Operating System: KDE neon 5.27
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.105.0
Qt Version: 5.15.9
Kernel Version: 5.19.0-41-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-7820HQ CPU @ 2.90GHz
Memory: 22,7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: SVGA3D; build: RELEASE; LLVM;
Manufacturer: innotek GmbH
Product Name: VirtualBox
System Version: 1.2

This is a very systematic issue and easily reproducible on Virtualbox. I had it reproduced also on a openSUSE Linux host, KDE Neon as guest.

On that VM I had the 'grub-theme-breeze' package installed, but I did not check it's install status, if /boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt file was installed. I'll be anyways removing 'grub-theme-breeze' in the future.

But also, it is quite hard to believe that native installations would be trouble-free regarding this issue. (Or not too many active users for  KDE Neon..?)

(In reply to Lassi Väätämöinen from comment #3)
> Not sure if these issues with Breeze Grub theme are related:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/kdeneon/comments/z0vf4h/
> kde_neon_update_replaced_grub_with_broken_version/
> https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/8nkzvs/
> neon_seems_hardwired_to_look_for_breeze_grub/
> 
> For what it's worth, I don't even seem to have the Breeze theme on my system
> (after running Boot Repair Disc, which is a must with KDE Neon...)
> 
> $ cat /etc/default/grub.d/99_breeze-grub.cfg 
> GRUB_THEME=/boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt
> 
> $ sudo ls /boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt
> ls: cannot access '/boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt': No such file or
> directory
> 

In this case 'dpkg -l  |grep grub-theme-breeze' showed that the package was installed, but the theme file was missing.

Now, every time an upgrade happens, Grub wants to get displayed. On a normal boot it does not show. If the theme is then broken like this, not booting after upgrade might be explained.

But the questions:
a) why is the theme file missing?
b) why does grub want to show up after upgrade, but not on a normal boot?

I had the same very issue, again, yesterday. This should be blocker priority.

This happened to me again, but this time when first reboot after dualbooting on real legacy BIOS system. That makes me think this is a problem with GRUB on KDE Neon, and not pkcon one. I haven't tested on a UEFI system yet.

(In reply to Samuel Q from comment #7)
> first reboot after dualbooting
> on real legacy BIOS system. That makes me think this is a problem with GRUB
> on KDE Neon, and not pkcon one. I haven't tested on a UEFI system yet.

Did you run an upgrade before rebooting?

I have not had Grub corruption after removing the 'grub-theme-breeze' package. But I still see some "Guru mediation" errors when upgrades are installed and the VM is being rebooted.

(In reply to Lassi Väätämöinen from comment #8)
> Did you run an upgrade before rebooting?

No, I booted the Neon unstable ISO through Ventoy and shrunk an partition to install it. Grub froze on the first boot after that.