Arch Linux

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

[solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Hi,

My PC uses a Ryzen 3 1300X CPU running on a Gigabyte AB350M-D3V MB
The GPU is a Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030

I'm using Grub as the boot loader

I've had boot issues since upgrading from linux-6.2.2.arch2-1, with the system hanging after displaying:

  Booting `Arch Linux'
Loading Linux linux ...
Loading initial ramdisk ...

I've tried upgrading to linux-6.2.6-arch1-1 and linux-6.2.8.arch1-1, both show the same error.  Downgrading to linux-6.2.2.arch2-1 allows the boot-up to proceed as normal.

Other things I've tried:

Booting from the fallback image
Booting with and without "nvidia-drm.modeset=1"

It's not a new system and was built when /boot/efi was a suggested EFI system partition mount point and was wondering if this might be part of the problem, although Grub should be okay with it afaik.

Any advice will be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Rob

***
Solved - This is fixed in 6.2.11-arch1-1
***

Last edited by Painless (2023-04-15 13:29:30)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,300

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

This very strongly looks like the "usual" issue of having a deviating /boot setup during installation and actual system runtime

After updating what is your output for

lsblk -f
cat /etc/fstab
cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
file /boot/vmlinuz-linux
sudo lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img | grep nvidia

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Thanks for getting back.  I have posted the output after update/before reboot to https://pastebin.com/WEt29t7H

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,300

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Looks fine, what are you expecting to boot into? If some graphical session/display manager, do you get to a terminal with the

systemd.unit=multi-user.target

parameter?

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I would expect it to boot into LightDM.

Unfortunately it just hangs with a flashing cursor after printing:

Loading initial ramdisk ...

It seems loading of initramfs does not complete properly.

Keyboard and mouse are both unlit/unresponsive so I can't check virtual consoles.

afader

Member

Registered: 2013-09-12

Posts: 171

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I think I may have a similar issue

Edit solved it reinstalling kernel and mkinitcpio

Last edited by afader (2023-03-25 03:48:03)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,042

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Can you boot "systemd.unit=multi-user.target nomodeset"?
Can you ping the non-booting system?

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I think I may have a similar issue

Edit solved it reinstalling kernel and mkinitcpio

Unfortunately this didn't help.  I also re-installed grub, re-ran grub-install and grub-mkconfig.

Can you boot "systemd.unit=multi-user.target nomodeset"?
Can you ping the non-booting system?

The PC hangs at the same point and cannot be pinged.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,078

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

If you install linux-lts in addion to the linux package,  can you boot into linux-lts?  If you use the ALA to obtain the linux package releases between 6.2.2.arch2-1 and 6.2.8.arch1-1 do they all have the issue?

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

I just tried completely uninstalling nvidia (plus utils/settings/lib32), then installing linux-6.2.8.arch1 ... still hangs as before.

If you use the ALA to obtain the linux package releases between 6.2.2.arch2-1 and 6.2.8.arch1-1 do they all have the issue?

• linux-6.2.2.arch2-1 - boots

• linux-6.2.6.arch1-1 - hangs

• linux-6.2.8.arch1-1 - hangs

I'll try linux-lts next.

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

If you install linux-lts in addion to the linux package,  can you boot into linux-lts?

Unfortunately this hangs as before, same goes for linux-lts fallback.

I have also tried changing mkinitcpio compression to gzip, but no joy.

I'm very confused about this.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,078

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

What about linux-6.2.1.arch1-1 or linux-6.2.arch1-1?  If you change the systemd target to boot into to rescue.target or emergency.target does the system still hang?

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

• linux-6.2.arch1-1 - boots

• linux-6.2.1.arch1-1 - boots

linux-6.2.8.arch1-1

• rescue.target - hangs

• emergency.target - hangs

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,078

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Something introduced between 6.2.2 and 6.2.6 appears to have introduced a regression.  Apart from narrowing down that range I would suggest trying the kernel parameters  iommu=off acpi=off nomodeset.

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

'acpi=off' allows the system to boot but with CPU tsc errors and without LightDM loading

'iommu=off' allows the system to boot, seems normal.  I'll have to do some research on iommu.

Thanks 

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,042

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Do you get away w/ "iommu=soft"?

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Do you get away w/ "iommu=soft"?

I'm afraid it hangs.

I've also tried 'amd_iommu=fullflush' which hangs and 'amd_iommu=off' which boots.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,078

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

@seth any thoughts on what could have introduced in it linux-6.2.3.arch1-1 to avoid a bisection?

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/78038

ote, that in signing up t

Member

Registered: 2023-03-29

Posts: 2

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

The same thing happened to me (AMD Ryzen 1500X, Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3), only by disabling the IOMMU could it boot (or downgrading). But after enabling SVM in BIOS (M.I.T. --> Advanced Frequency Settings --> Advanced CPU Settings --> SVM Mode: Enabled), it has started to boot fine.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,042

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Given #15 & #17: https://github.com/gregkh/linux/commits … vers/iommu - the Mar 10, 2023 commits, particualirly the amd related ones. Then the global ones.
The SNP one kinda looks at me …

Edit: even more after the last post…

Last edited by seth (2023-03-29 21:45:03)

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,078

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

If you blacklist kvm and kvm-amd can you boot with SVM disabled?

module_blacklist=kvm,kvm-amd

Last edited by loqs (2023-03-29 22:02:43)

ote, that in signing up t

Member

Registered: 2023-03-29

Posts: 2

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

If you blacklist kvm and kvm-amd can you boot with SVM disabled?

module_blacklist=kvm,kvm-amd

It hangs like before.

For me it only works if I boot:
- With kernel "linux-6.2.2.arch2-1-x86_64" or "linux-lts-6.1.15-1-x86_64" (or earlier).
- IOMMU disabled, either from BIOS or with kernel parameter.
- SVM mode enabled in BIOS.

Last edited by ote, that in signing up t (2023-03-29 23:56:37)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,078

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

$ git bisect start
status: waiting for both good and bad commits
$ git bisect bad v6.2.3
status: waiting for good commit(s), bad commit known
$ git bisect good v6.2.2
Bisecting: 498 revisions left to test after this (roughly 9 steps)
[065a789b413ab69b6a67c6af4970d997ac50c96c] coresight: etm4x: Fix accesses to TRCSEQRSTEVR and TRCSEQSTR

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1REWFPz … share_link linux-6.2.2.r499.g065a789b413a-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18HzURF … share_link linux-headers-6.2.2.r499.g065a789b413a-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
Edit:
Assuming the last kernel was good

$ git bisect good
Bisecting: 249 revisions left to test after this (roughly 8 steps)
[17e3c7f2b576bcca0a973a8f506f9e598d4fb704] ipmi_ssif: Rename idle state and check

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BQRQuB … share_link linux-6.2.2.r748.g17e3c7f2b576-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qFyHHK … share_link linux-headers-6.2.2.r748.g17e3c7f2b576-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
Edit2:
Assuming the last kernel was good

$ git bisect good
Bisecting: 124 revisions left to test after this (roughly 7 steps)
[9930b568dccf197a2cd32183905ebe4df195dff9] selftests: vm: Fix incorrect kernel headers search path

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19xYmcc … share_link linux-6.2.2.r873.g9930b568dccf-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IU3HjR … share_link linux-headers-6.2.2.r873.g9930b568dccf-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Last edited by loqs (2023-03-30 00:51:36)

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

If you blacklist kvm and kvm-amd can you boot with SVM disabled?

module_blacklist=kvm,kvm-amd

Likewise, hangs for me

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

Re: [solved] System unbootable, hangs at "Loading initial ramdisk ..."

Unfortunately the first kernel - linux-6.2.2.r499.g065a789b413a-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst - hangs