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#51 2021-02-20 22:36:18

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Maniaxx wrote:

Did you try systemd-boot as well? I rather think ucodes are a red herring (unless you find other ppl with same problems). Did you check general stability with memtest yet?
Those laptops are a mess indeed with all the custom proprietary embedded controllers, Ring -2 security hypervisors and so on.

Maybe try to tweak grub to load ucodes/ramdisk/kernel "different" (if that's possible). I don't know... maybe something with alternative free space enumeration, different memory allocation, etc.. Not sure what's possible here.

Or look up the BIOS itself for any features to shut down. I've seen (for example) somewhere in your logs something about EC security driver. All this business DRM security spyware crap no one wants could be a potential interfering low-level error candidate.

That the ucodes itself are buggy is rather unlikely i think. And yes, this all is already beyond rational bug hunting.

memtest din not find any error.
In the BIOS there is nothing strange or unusual activated.
On this laptop all was working correctly since some months ago and windows keep working well , so it seems more a kernel bug somehow related to the intel-ucode.
Tomorrow I'll install systemd-boot and I will see if it has any effect.


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#52 2021-02-20 23:59:22

Maniaxx
Member
Registered: 2014-05-14
Posts: 732

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Maybe wait until next kernel update. It should be released very soon.


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#53 2021-02-21 12:47:47

intersectRaven
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Registered: 2020-12-14
Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I experience this randomly as well. I find that just pausing the bootup sequence at the selection screen by changing the selected option for a few seconds (greater than the default 5 seconds) makes my system boot successfully. I'd agree with the above though that it may have been caused by a kernel update since this occurred to me from 5.10.14 or so.

*forgot to mention that another workaround I found is booting the fallback linux option always works...

Last edited by intersectRaven (2021-02-21 12:48:48)

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#54 2021-02-21 15:03:49

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

intersectRaven wrote:

I experience this randomly as well. I find that just pausing the bootup sequence at the selection screen by changing the selected option for a few seconds (greater than the default 5 seconds) makes my system boot successfully. I'd agree with the above though that it may have been caused by a kernel update since this occurred to me from 5.10.14 or so.

*forgot to mention that another workaround I found is booting the fallback linux option always works...

The fallback always works simply because it doesn't load the ucode at all.
I too have noted that awaiting 5 seconds before selecting the option in GRUB somehow at least diminishes the chance of a freeze, but in my experience it does not guarantee that the boot process completes correctly without freezing.
What kind of boot manager are you using? GRUB?

Last edited by Xwang (2021-02-21 15:07:26)


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#55 2021-02-22 00:32:25

intersectRaven
Member
Registered: 2020-12-14
Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Xwang wrote:
intersectRaven wrote:

I experience this randomly as well. I find that just pausing the bootup sequence at the selection screen by changing the selected option for a few seconds (greater than the default 5 seconds) makes my system boot successfully. I'd agree with the above though that it may have been caused by a kernel update since this occurred to me from 5.10.14 or so.

*forgot to mention that another workaround I found is booting the fallback linux option always works...

The fallback always works simply because it doesn't load the ucode at all.
I too have noted that awaiting 5 seconds before selecting the option in GRUB somehow at least diminishes the chance of a freeze, but in my experience it does not guarantee that the boot process completes correctly without freezing.
What kind of boot manager are you using? GRUB?

Yeah. I use grub-git with LUKS2 and BTRFS.

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#56 2021-02-22 17:19:46

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Today I've installed and configured systemd-boot and after 10 successful reboots it has frozen in the same way.
I've also tried to create a merged img containing both intel-ucode and initramfs (as explained here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/microcode#LILO) but nothing has changed.
I wonder if creating an unified kernel image (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/sy … rnel_image) can change something, but I doubt.


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#57 2021-02-22 21:21:24

Maniaxx
Member
Registered: 2014-05-14
Posts: 732

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Maybe try some older ucodes for reference. You could also ask on the kernel mailing list.


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#58 2021-02-22 21:30:03

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Maniaxx wrote:

Maybe try some older ucodes for reference. You could also ask on the kernel mailing list.

I've already tried older ucodes up to the 20190918-1 with no luck.
I am going to wait for the newer 5.11 which is in testing and if the same issue is present I'll ask on the kernel mailing list.


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#59 2021-02-22 21:43:13

Roken
Member
From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Keep us updated. I have a similar problem stuck at "loading initial ramdisk" on my laptop, with no apparent cause. Mine is AMD, and I've disabled, and even removed ucode, but nothing helps. The bad news (if the problems are related) is that for me, it only started with 5.11. I'm currently stuck at 5.10.16, which works without an issue.

I'll keep watching this thread, and testing possibilities.


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#60 2021-02-24 08:57:46

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

The issue is still present with 5.11.1
Should I open a bug in archlinux or directly upstream at kernel.org?


I'm still learning English so please excuse me if my English is not good enough and feel free to correct me via PM if you want.

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#61 2021-02-24 12:55:58

Maniaxx
Member
Registered: 2014-05-14
Posts: 732

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I would ask upstream. Maybe test some other distributions or LiveCDs as well beforehand.


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#62 2021-02-24 16:59:36

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Maniaxx wrote:

Maybe test some other distributions or LiveCDs as well beforehand.

Should I look for other distros with about the same kernel version (5.10 or 5.11) which are not arch derived? Is it correct?


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#63 2021-02-24 17:42:36

Maniaxx
Member
Registered: 2014-05-14
Posts: 732

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Yes, maybe the most popular ones like Ubuntu or Debian. They should provides 5.x kernels as well i guess.


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#64 2021-02-24 22:20:52

Roken
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From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

There's another thread appeared tonight with the same problem. It's starting to look like an upstream issue.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=263976


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#65 2021-02-28 18:34:12

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Using a live distro did not show the issue, but I did not find any live with a kernel newer than 5.9.
Then I tried with acpi=off and I was able to reboot more than 30 times without the freeze (even though with such option the nvidia driver was not loaded for an IRQ issue and I had to press the power button to force the shutdown of the PC and to turn it on again).
Then I tried to use acpi_osi='Windows 2020' without luck.


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#66 2021-02-28 23:14:30

Weenut
Member
Registered: 2021-01-24
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I have the same problem except I cannot boot at all

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#67 2021-03-01 11:26:25

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Weenut wrote:

I have the same problem except I cannot boot at all

Can you tell more about your pc configuration?
Can you add

 initcall_debug earlycon=efifb

to your kernel command line and make a photo of the latest messages on screen so that to be sure that the issue is the same?

Last edited by Xwang (2021-03-06 20:00:52)


I'm still learning English so please excuse me if my English is not good enough and feel free to correct me via PM if you want.

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#68 2021-03-06 10:12:56

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I've read the guidelines to report a bug to the kernel mailing list, but it says:
"This is the Kernel.org Bugzilla for posting bugs against the upstream Linux kernels (not distribution kernels)."
Should I open a bug to archlinux then?


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#69 2021-03-06 12:56:34

Roken
Member
From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I've been able to revisit this, and whilst I can't offer any further help. acpi=off has got me booting. acpi is not much of an issue for me, it only affects the battery - and since I rarely run on battery that's not an issue for me.

Nevertheless, that's two of us can workaround by disabling acpi, so should point in a direction.


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#70 2021-03-06 13:08:35

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Roken wrote:

I've been able to revisit this, and whilst I can't offer any further help. acpi=off has got me booting. acpi is not much of an issue for me, it only affects the battery - and since I rarely run on battery that's not an issue for me.

Nevertheless, that's two of us can workaround by disabling acpi, so should point in a direction.

From my side I'm not so sure.
In my case using acpi=off forced me to power off the pc at every reboot.
So I think it is not able to recreate the same conditions since in my case the freeze happens only when rebooting, not when shutting down and later restarting.
Moreover acpi=off prevent my nvidia driver to be loaded for an IRQ issue.


I'm still learning English so please excuse me if my English is not good enough and feel free to correct me via PM if you want.

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#71 2021-03-06 13:20:24

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Roken wrote:

I've been able to revisit this, and whilst I can't offer any further help. acpi=off has got me booting. acpi is not much of an issue for me, it only affects the battery - and since I rarely run on battery that's not an issue for me.

Nevertheless, that's two of us can workaround by disabling acpi, so should point in a direction.

Without acpi=off, can you add

initcall_debug earlycon=efifb

to your kernel command line and make a photo of the latest messages on screen when it hangs so that to be sure that the issue is the same?

Last edited by Xwang (2021-03-06 20:01:07)


I'm still learning English so please excuse me if my English is not good enough and feel free to correct me via PM if you want.

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#72 2021-03-06 19:59:16

Roken
Member
From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I'll give it a go tomorrow. I have an SSD arriving to replace the poor spinner in the laptop, so once I clone and get it going I'll try the extra debug.


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#73 2021-03-07 10:14:49

Roken
Member
From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Whilst I'm waiting for the new drive to arrive, I tested without acpi=off and

initcall_debug earlycon=efifb

All it does is scroll one line, then absolutely nothing. No additional text or messages.

Oh, and with an iGPU (AMD) it isn't shutting down. Everything closes, but laptop remains powered on, so I clearly do need acpi.

Last edited by Roken (2021-03-07 10:16:38)


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#74 2021-03-07 10:40:44

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Roken wrote:

Whilst I'm waiting for the new drive to arrive, I tested without acpi=off and

initcall_debug earlycon=efifb

All it does is scroll one line, then absolutely nothing. No additional text or messages.

Oh, and with an iGPU (AMD) it isn't shutting down. Everything closes, but laptop remains powered on, so I clearly do need acpi.

Then maybe your bug is different than mine.


I'm still learning English so please excuse me if my English is not good enough and feel free to correct me via PM if you want.

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#75 2021-03-08 17:09:24

Xwang
Member
Registered: 2012-05-14
Posts: 353

Re: [SOLVED] Frequent freezes on "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Today I've downgraded the BIOS from the newer available version (303 released on 2019/05/29) to the oldest one (202 released on 2015/12/02)
This is the available "changelog":

Version 303  2019/05/29 2.6 MBytes
Optimize system performance

Version 301 2016/10/13 2.6 MBytes
Update FW

Version 300 2016/09/30 2.6 MBytes
Update FW

Version 204 2016/02/25 2.61 MBytes
Update microcode

Version 203 2015/12/30 2.61 MBytes
Update thermal policy
Update NV VBIOS

Version 202 2015/12/02 2.6 MBytes
Update NV VBIOS

With the oldest BIOS 202, the freeze issue do not happens any more (I've done more than 150 reboots/restarts), so the issue seems to be solved.
I wonder if I should try to find which is the newest BIOS version which works correctly.
Meantime I put SOLVED in the title!!!


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