Arch Linux

Grafcube

Member

Registered: 2021-10-18

Posts: 20

Buffer too small returned from vmlinuz-linux

I have been trying to fix this issue for a week now and I'm not even a little closer to figuring it out. So any solution that even helps a little is very appreciated. I'm very frustrated.

Here's a picture of the issue. https://i.imgur.com/4beQjdG.png
This is what it looks like on rEFInd. I thought it might be a problem with rEFInd so I tried systemd-boot but it shows a similar message.

This only happens on my PC but Arch boots perfectly on my laptop. I've installed Arch onto a 250GB SSD and connected it by USB. My PC's hardware is a little old but live USBs work, Windows 10 works, I used to use Pop OS with rEFInd and it worked fine  and I installed Endeavour OS to a USB I had lying around and it worked fine (I didn't change the bootloader. I think it uses GRUB). Both my PC and Laptop are set to use UEFI boot only. I've also tried reinstalling the kernel.

Here's my rEFInd configuration. These are the only things I changed from the default but I also changed and tested each individual setting.

timeout -1

use_nvram false

hideui singleuser
hideui editor

enable_mouse

scanfor manual

menuentry "Arch Linux" {
    icon     \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_arch.png
    loader   \vmlinuz-linux-zen
    initrd   \initramfs-linux-zen.img
    #options  "root=UUID=7286f903-aa3e-4e10-834f-fc7a444e786d rw rootflags=subvol=@ add_efi_memmap initrd=\intel-ucode.img nvidia-drm.modeset=1 intel_iommu=on iommu=pt resume=UUID=7286f903-aa3e-4e10-834f-fc7a444e786d resume_offset=8317952"
    options  "root=UUID=7286f903-aa3e-4e10-834f-fc7a444e786d rw rootflags=subvol=@"

    submenuentry "Boot using default kernel" {
    	loader \vmlinuz-linux
        initrd \initramfs-linux.img
    }

    submenuentry "Boot using fallback initramfs" {
        initrd \initramfs-linux-fallback.img
    }
 
    submenuentry "Boot to terminal" {
        add_options "systemd.unit=multi-user.target"
    }

    enabled
}

My esp is mounted on /boot. /home is on a separate btrfs partition. I have @swap as a subvolume. My PC has an Nvidia card if that's relevant.

Searching for the issue, I found very few results that was actually about my problem. This is one of them but it's not helpful. This was another result that showed up that matched exactly with my issue but wasn't for vanilla Arch. I still tried the suggested solutions but it still didn't work. I eventually found this pdf that mentioned EFI_BUFFER_TO_SMALL but at that point I was way too out of my depth.

It gets even more weird though. I spent almost the whole day trying different things and a few hours ago, it actually booted successfully. Then sddm failed to start but I'd seen the error before. I fixed it last time on my laptop by generating the default xorg.conf file even though I use Wayland. So I switched to tty2 and did sudo nvidia-xconfig and rebooted (I was even going to log in with Plasma X11 because I've heard bad things about Nvidia on Wayland) and to my disappointment, the same error happened. And it persisted even after I reverted my changes.

I am out of ideas and I don't know what to do. My intuition says that it should be possible to make it work on my PC because other OSes work, but it doesn't and there are barely any search results to use for troubleshooting.

Any help is very appreciated. Thanks.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,560

Re: Buffer too small returned from vmlinuz-linux

First off, if you're moving this between systems, you need to be using the fallback initramfs.

And your fallback entry won't work, as it would be using the 'linux' package initramfs instead of the 'linux-zen' one.

Last edited by Scimmia (2021-10-18 16:25:56)

Grafcube

Member

Registered: 2021-10-18

Posts: 20

Re: Buffer too small returned from vmlinuz-linux

Thanks for your reply.

Yes I remember reading that in the wiki. I tried the default, fallback and zen configurations. There was no difference. My config has changed a lot.

Last edited by Grafcube (2021-10-18 16:35:09)

Grafcube

Member

Registered: 2021-10-18

Posts: 20

Re: Buffer too small returned from vmlinuz-linux

I have an update that might actually help. I have a Ventoy USB with several ISOs. Here's a list.

1. Arch 2021.09.01 (I downloaded it last month)

2. Clonezilla Live (Based on Debian)

3. Endeavour OS 2021.08.27

4. Fedora Workstation Live

5. Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon

6. openSUSE Tumbleweed NET

7. Pop!_OS 21.04 Nvidia

When I plug in both my Ventoy USB and my SSD, only Pop OS and Linux Mint boot successfully (both are based on Ubuntu). If any of the ISOs have a bootloader, it shows up, but when I choose an option it shows the same error. But when I only plug in the Ventoy USB and not the SSD, all the ISOs boot correctly except for Fedora and openSUSE (could be unrelated, I downloaded them a long time ago). I was able to consistently reproduce this behaviour.

I tried connecting both devices separately and at the same time on different USB ports on my computer (front and back) and the behaviour was the same.

At this point the only solution I can think of is buying a new motherboard. It's really old anyway but I can't upgrade anytime soon. Oh well. Thanks anyway.

Hanro50

Member

Registered: 2023-02-09

Posts: 1

Website

Re: Buffer too small returned from vmlinuz-linux

I ran into this same issue on a M/B with an MSI UEFI BIOS.
Resetting my bios settings to their default values and then rebooting cleared up the issue for me.

I believe it might have something to do with the fast-boot settings as those where the last options I tinkered with before I experienced this issue.
I apologise for bumping the thread.   

System specifications:
OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: 6.1.9-arch1-2
CPU: Intel i5-4690 (4) @ 3.900GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Memory:  15930MiB
Bootloader: Systemd-boot