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#1 2020-06-12 13:37:52

pbrenna
Member
Registered: 2015-11-14
Posts: 11

Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Hi, i'm just leaving this here if anyone else has the same problem.
intel-ucode 20200609-1 prevents my thinkpad t460 from successfully booting,
instead it hangs after grub prints "Loading initial ramdisk..."

This happens with both of the kernels i use: the official `linux` and `linux-rt-lts` from the aur.

The solution for me was to disable intel-ucode (can be done by uninstalling and regenerating grub.cfg, or just remove it from the grub.cfg).
However, i was wondering could be the reason of this behaviour.

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#2 2020-06-12 13:51:32

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

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#3 2020-06-13 15:11:08

zpg443
Member
Registered: 2016-12-03
Posts: 271

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

I can confirm this bug.

For my desktop PC with dual monitors, intel-ucode 20200609-1 does not "hang at boot". But it does break sddm, and cannot even get a console.

Had to chroot via live disk, disable sddm and restore an earlier image.

Then, ignore upgrade in pacman.conf (prevent 20200520-1 => 20200609-2) until the issue is fixed.

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#4 2020-06-13 15:21:56

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

@zpg443 that would be a different issue as 20200609-2 reverted the update for the 06-4e-03 signature.

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#5 2020-06-13 15:27:23

zpg443
Member
Registered: 2016-12-03
Posts: 271

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

You are correct. Just now confirmed sddm is still breaking even with ignoring the upgrade. Still troubleshooting and will post a separate thread if unable to resolve.

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#6 2020-06-13 17:12:52

Nailles
Member
Registered: 2011-02-09
Posts: 6

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Reverting intel-ucode didn't work for me. I reverted intel-ucode, systemd, systemd-libs, systemd-sysvcompat, and linux. Maybe I didn't have to do all that, but it works fine now.

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#7 2020-06-13 17:51:53

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

If you update intel-ucode leaving the other packages downgraded does the system still boot?  Proving it is a different issue?

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#8 2020-06-13 18:34:53

Nailles
Member
Registered: 2011-02-09
Posts: 6

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Okay, I did a bit of a more thorough job: I only needed to revert intel-ucode and linux. If I leave either of those current it'll hang.

(BTW, this thread doubled my post count over the last nine years)

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#9 2020-06-13 18:50:27

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

@Nailles you are updating to intel-ucode 20200609-2?

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#10 2020-06-13 18:55:56

nourathar
Member
From: Bxl
Registered: 2013-04-26
Posts: 109

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Thanks for this, I had the same issue since reverting linux, linux-headers and intel-ucode helped.
This was with intel-ucode-20200609-2-any

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#11 2020-06-13 18:57:05

Nailles
Member
Registered: 2011-02-09
Posts: 6

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Yes, my packages are linux-5.7.2, linux-5.6.15, intel-ucode-20200609-2, and intel-ucode-20200520-1. Using either linux-5.7.2 or intel-ucode-20200609-2 will result in a hang.

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#12 2020-06-13 19:05:47

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

What signature microcode do your system's use?

dmesg | grep microcode

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#13 2020-06-13 19:13:03

nourathar
Member
From: Bxl
Registered: 2013-04-26
Posts: 109

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

For me it says:

$ dmesg | grep microcode
[    0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x2f, date = 2019-02-17
[    0.724311] microcode: sig=0x206a7, pf=0x2, revision=0x2f
[    0.724543] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

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#14 2020-06-13 19:41:24

Nailles
Member
Registered: 2011-02-09
Posts: 6

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

$ dmesg | grep microcode
[    0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x1b, date = 2019-02-26
[    1.696983] microcode: sig=0x40661, pf=0x20, revision=0x1b
[    1.697249] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

My other computer running Arch doesn't hang when my packages are fully up-to-date.

Last edited by Nailles (2020-06-13 19:54:56)

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#15 2020-06-14 09:27:12

nourathar
Member
From: Bxl
Registered: 2013-04-26
Posts: 109

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

there seems to be more information on this topic here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=256273&p=2

Like some others in that thread, I am also using EFIstub, so am I understanding correctly that the orientation of slashes in the vmlinuz and initramfs paths has changed, starting with kernel 5.7.2 ?
So these problems may have nothing to do with intel-ucode ? I also have another computer that runs the most recent versions no problem, and it uses systemd-boot, whereas the computer that has problems runs efistub.
Will try this out later today.

Last edited by nourathar (2020-06-14 10:47:25)

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#16 2020-06-14 11:15:35

nourathar
Member
From: Bxl
Registered: 2013-04-26
Posts: 109

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Yes, I can confirm that after changing the initrd paths in my boot entries with efibootmgr, I can update to the most recent kernel and intel-ucode wihtout any problem. So in my case it was not intel-ucode related.

Instructions for efistub here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFISTUB#efibootmgr

So if that (or something similar) works for you too, you might want to change the name of this thread ?

I think this might only happen to those people who use efistub or rEFInd and who configured this at a time that the wiki-example had forward slashes in those initrd-paths and who have not changed it since. Per the new kernel it gives problems, no idea why now so strict all of a sudden.

Last edited by nourathar (2020-06-14 11:23:13)

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#17 2020-06-17 12:00:46

nstgc
Member
Registered: 2014-03-17
Posts: 393

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

This happened to me this morning. Fortunately I was paying attention yesterday and noticed `intel-ucode`. I `ctrl+alt+del` (and for good measure `SysRq+REISUB'ed`). Checking `journalctl -b -1` everything unmounted fine so no harm done. I couldn't find out what went wrong through so I checked the forums. Glad I'm not the only one.

$ dmesg | grep microcode
[    0.624252] microcode: sig=0x306e4, pf=0x4, revision=0x42e
[    0.624288] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

[edit] I do not use an EFI bootloader, just GRUB.

$ cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size
cat: /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size: No such file or directory

Last edited by nstgc (2020-06-17 13:04:02)

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#18 2020-06-17 13:23:14

zpg443
Member
Registered: 2016-12-03
Posts: 271

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

FYI, there is a new intel microcode update as of yesterday, 16 Jun.

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extr … tel-ucode/

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#19 2020-06-17 13:34:05

nstgc
Member
Registered: 2014-03-17
Posts: 393

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

zpg443 wrote:

FYI, there is a new intel microcode update as of yesterday, 16 Jun.

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extr … tel-ucode/

To be completely clear, this is the one that is currently causing issues for me. The previous version worked fine for me (I don't make use of UEFI).

Last edited by nstgc (2020-06-17 13:34:42)

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#20 2020-06-17 20:11:19

gps1539
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2013-11-06
Posts: 133

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

Not sure I'm hitting the same issue, but my NUC started hanging every 1-3 days a couple of weeks back and the timing would be roughly after updating intel-ucode (plus many other updates).

journalctl --boot=-1 sometimes (not always) captures errors like the following:

Jun 13 10:09:35 dp kernel: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000>
Jun 13 10:09:35 dp kernel: #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
Jun 13 10:09:35 dp kernel: #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
Jun 13 10:09:35 dp kernel: PGD 0 P4D 0
Jun 13 10:09:35 dp kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI

Jun 16 12:33:44 dp kernel: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000>
Jun 16 12:33:44 dp kernel: #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
Jun 16 12:33:44 dp kernel: #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page


I restored the boot drive from a clonezilla image I took in March. I will not updating anything to see if it runs for a full week.

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#21 2020-06-17 20:21:09

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

@gps1539 a couple of weeks back would be before the microcode update this thread is about was released so can not be the cause of your issue.

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#22 2020-06-22 23:04:31

gps1539
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2013-11-06
Posts: 133

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

@loqs, I believe i jumped from 20191115-3 to 20200520-1. Since restoring my NUC has been up for > 5 days. I will update everything but intel-ucode and see what happens.
Note. from a chat on Server Fault, the May ucode update is rumored to crash some servers.

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#23 2020-06-22 23:26:10

loqs
Member
Registered: 2014-03-06
Posts: 17,195

Re: Latest intel microcode causes hang at boot

@gps1539 every other reporter in this thread is reporting 20200520-1 as good and 20200609-1 as bad Code_of_conduct#Thread_hijacking.

If you have an issue with 20200520-1 I am suggesting you start a separate thread or report it upstream Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files/issues

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