[SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

neon · 2013-02-12 17:27:38

I have my computer set up to dual boot Arch and Windows 8 using EFISTUB and rEFIfind as described in the beginners' guide. This had been functioning well for the last month or two but this morning I found that the computer would just hang after printing out:

Starting vmlinuz-arch.efi
Using load options 'root=/dev/sda7 ro rootfstype=ext4 systemd.unit=graphical.target'

The only thing that I've done since my last Arch boot is to install and run DiskInternals Linux Reader 1.6.4.0 on my Windows partition. I needed to grab a file from the Arch ext4 root partition and didn't think that a read operation could result in any corruption. I can still run this program in Windows and everything appears to be in order on the ext4 partition so I'm not entirely sure if this is related.

I did forget to set up systemd to copy over '/boot/vmlinuz-linux', '/boot/initramfs-linux.img', and '/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img' to the efi partition when they change which I thought might have caused this problem. I did this manually from Windows however and it had no impact on the behavior. If anybody could point me in the right direction here I would really appreciate it.

My refind_linux.conf contents are the following:

"Boot to X"		"root=/dev/sda7 ro rootfstype=ext4 systemd.unit=graphical.target"
"Boot to console"	"root=/dev/sda7 ro rootfstype=ext4 systemd.unit=multi-user.target"

Last edited by neon (2013-02-21 21:49:56)

srs5694 · 2013-02-13 00:50:59

Have you done any kernel updates recently? Some people have reported problems with at least one specific recent kernel.

If you're booting your kernel from an ext4fs partition and if you've got an EFI shell available, you could try using it to copy the kernel, initrd file, and refind_linux.conf file to the ESP from their ext4fs home. If the copy hangs, that points to a filesystem or filesystem driver problem. If it succeeds, then you can try booting it from the ESP, which might conceivably succeed (but probably won't). You could also try booting an emergency system and going an fsck on the partition. It's conceivable that the Windows software you installed damaged the filesystem in some subtle way that's causing the EFI driver to flake out. If your kernel resides on the ESP, you could try something similar on it, too; sometimes EFIs get a little sensitive about the state of the ESP.

neon · 2013-02-13 16:42:47

Thanks for the reply. I had already copied the kernel, initrd file, and refind_linux.conf file to the ESP while booted in Windows and this did not change the behavior. I then booted into a live usb of ubuntu and ran fsck on the arch partition. It said it was clean and if it did anything to repair it then it didn't indicate this in the output. I then mounted and chrooted to arch within this live environment and saw that the installed linux package version was 3.7.5-1 but that 3.7.7-1 was available. I honestly can't remember exactly when I had updated it previously but I'm fairly sure that it was before the booting issue came up. I tried to update at this point but pacman only downloaded the packages and then hit an error before installing them. I was going to next try arch-chroot from an arch usb but I tested booting into arch again first and found that it was now working. I'm not positive what exactly happened here but am happy that the issue is resolved.

neon · 2013-02-21 16:47:59

Last night I updated all of the packages on my system and this issue returned. I tried doing the fsck again (it said it was clean) but it made no difference. I also tried copying the necessary files from /boot to the EFI partition by hand and this all made no difference. When I updated the system the kernel was updated to 3.7.9-1.

Anybody have any other ideas for what I could try?

swordfish · 2013-02-21 18:45:37

neon wrote:

Anybody have any other ideas for what I could try?

For the moment - downgrading to a kernel you know that is running.

By the way: What kind of hardware we are talking about?

dhave · 2013-02-21 18:59:51

neon wrote:

Last night I updated all of the packages on my system and this issue returned. I tried doing the fsck again (it said it was clean) but it made no difference. I also tried copying the necessary files from /boot to the EFI partition by hand and this all made no difference. When I updated the system the kernel was updated to 3.7.9-1.
Anybody have any other ideas for what I could try?

Try reverting to kernel 3.7.7. There are some as-yet-mysterious glitches involving booting via EFI with Arch kernels 3.7.8, 3.7.9, and possibly some other releases of the 3.7.x series. The EFI problem doesn't seem to affect Arch kernel 3.7.7, though.

If you want to read about the problems -- and possibly get further confused! -- you could take a look at this thread.

Either way, I don't believe your problem is related to filesystem errors, which is what fsck addresses.

Last edited by dhave (2013-02-21 19:01:27)

neon · 2013-02-21 21:50:51

Downgrading did solve the problem and thanks for pointing me to that thread.

dhave · 2013-02-26 20:16:50

FYI, Arch kernel 3.7.9-2 is booting properly for me under rEFInd, though I'm not sure that's the case with everyone who has had this problem.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-02-12 17:27:38

[SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#2 2013-02-13 00:50:59

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#3 2013-02-13 16:42:47

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#4 2013-02-21 16:47:59

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#5 2013-02-21 18:45:37

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#6 2013-02-21 18:59:51

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#7 2013-02-21 21:50:51

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

#8 2013-02-26 20:16:50

Re: [SOLVED] rEfInd Started Hanging on Boot

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