Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

gdeshors · 2017-10-04 18:41:36

Hello

Everything is pretty much in the title... After having updated to 4.13.3 the system systematically fails to boot just after grub, at "loading initial ramdisk".
If I edit the grub entry to change vmlinuz and initrd to the LTS version that I installed for backup (4.9.52), the boot runs fine as usual.
No log seems to be in the log files, I see only the working boots with LTS.

I then downgraded linux to 4.12.12 and the boot works again. Of course I need to fix that and follow the normal updates, but having no log I don't know where to start. Does someone have a clue ?

My system is an old Dell optiplex 740 tower, with AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+.

Thanks in advance !
Guillaume

seth · 2017-10-04 20:11:39

remove the "quiet" parameter, add "nomodeset" and see whether that gets you any further (notably on status messages)
Maybe also pass "dbus"

circleface · 2017-10-04 20:22:27

Have you rebuilt the initramfs for the newer kernel? Maybe it got corrupted or crashed during the generation.

loqs · 2017-10-04 20:32:50

circleface wrote:

Maybe it got corrupted or crashed during the generation.

pacman.log should indicate if there was such an error during the upgrade unless it resulted in silent corruption.

gdeshors · 2017-10-04 20:48:39

Thanks for your answers.
I've just checked pacman.log and the build of the initial upgrade to 4.13 looks OK, no alert. Since that I had also tried to just reinstall linux (pacman -S linux), which had no effect. I should also say that when I edit grub command line, if I put the LTS initramfs with the 4.13 kernel it fails the same, whereas if I put the LTS kernel and 4.13 initramfs it boots on and fails afterwards because of course it's not compatible (by the way, was it wrong to test this, can it break something ?). So it seems to me that it's really a kernel problem.

Seth I'll do your test and post the result.

gdeshors · 2017-10-04 20:59:16

I removed the "quiet" parameter, added "nomodeset" and "dbus" : it failed the same way with no more information.

seth · 2017-10-04 21:06:48

S*** - "debug"
I should try to keep my brains and fingers in sync ;-)

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ge … bug_output on details

gdeshors · 2017-10-06 11:26:44

Thanks, and sorry for following without thinking.

With "debug" only, it failed the same way with nothing new on the screen and still no log.
But I then tried "acpi=off" (from the page you just cited) and the boot went on normally. I have saved the boot logs for this boot, but with the debug option it's quite huge (1mio), what should I be looking for in it ?

seth · 2017-10-06 12:09:45

Good start, now follow https://web.archive.org/web/20120217124 … /debug.php and see whether that gets you somewhere.

gdeshors · 2017-10-06 21:47:18

Ok, I've tested the six options to disable parts of ACPI, here are the results :
acpi=ht : KO (doesn't boot)
pci=noacpi : OK (boots)
acpi=noirq : OK
pnpacpi=off : KO
noapic : OK
nolapic : OK
Does that help ?

I'd be willing to run a bisection on the linux source tree, but I'm not sure how to do it. I already tried a while ago when there was a kernel regression that affected my computer, and gave up by lack of time to learn how to do it. I'm not afraid by the git and bisection side (I'm a developer), nor by the compilation itself (I went through gentoo...), more by putting it all together with the minimal steps, not messing up with my installed kernels and modules etc, ending up with a testable kernel and initrd, creating an entry in grub **AND** knowing exactly how to clean afterwards.
I've read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … ild_System which doesn't seem relevant for bisection, the best I've found is https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … ompilation but : it doesnt mention git, it is too open (too many choices to make), and it seems oriented towards compiling a main kernel, not a temporary one, so it doesn't say precisely how to clean up afterwards (say modules, for instance).
I may try it with this page, but if someone knows of a dedicated how-to to bisecting the kernel in Arch, I'll be grateful. I've seen in the forums a few occasions when people miss that page, and I agree because compiling, installing and testing a kernel is more complicated than many other software, so I think it would deserve a page of its own.

seth · 2017-10-07 07:55:14

See eg. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 1#p1682931 (adapt the version numbers)

Arch Linux

#1 2017-10-04 18:41:36

Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#2 2017-10-04 20:11:39

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#3 2017-10-04 20:22:27

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#4 2017-10-04 20:32:50

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#5 2017-10-04 20:48:39

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#6 2017-10-04 20:59:16

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#7 2017-10-04 21:06:48

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#8 2017-10-06 11:26:44

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#9 2017-10-06 12:09:45

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#10 2017-10-06 21:47:18

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

#11 2017-10-07 07:55:14

Re: Boot fails at "loading initial ramdisk" with linux 4.13.3-1

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