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#1 2025-09-14 16:20:47

darcmage
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Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

Ran into this issue this morning after performing an update like I usually do with yay. Nothing seemed off while it was going on and I saw it generate the new grub with the updated kernels. Rebooted and saw nothing but an entry for UEFI firmware settings. Did the boot usb > chroot > recover process. My question is how do I find out why this happened. I couldn't see anything obvious in the logs.

Journalctl from the previous boot: https://0x0.st/KcqE.txt
Pacman log: https://0x0.st/Kcc2.log

Thanks.

Last edited by darcmage (2025-09-14 18:23:28)

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#2 2025-09-14 17:47:06

cryptearth
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Registered: 2024-02-03
Posts: 1,730

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

this usually doesn't happen as for entries to "disappear" the config has to get changed
so - if you booted fine - updated - then entries lost -> somewhere in that chain the grub.cfg had to be re-written - which usually doesn'T happen automatically so either did this yourself or have some pacman hook doing that (likely when you have snapshots which has to regenerate new config every time)

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#3 2025-09-14 17:59:48

darcmage
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Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

Appreciate the response. I have a timeshift hook and looking at the logs, grub was recreated successfully post snapshot. That snapshot and the previous ones were picked up again during chroot grub recovery.

Edit: Probably unrelated, someone is going through a similar experience today in the M derivative distro in their testing branch.

Last edited by darcmage (2025-09-14 18:04:29)

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#4 2025-09-15 00:10:09

cryptearth
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Registered: 2024-02-03
Posts: 1,730

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

I don't use timeshift as I have my OS on a simple ext4 100GB partition - with /home although seperate mere is a location for all those configs and caches and downloads - everything else is on a zfs pool I do manual snapshots

or - tl;dr: i don't have experience with what caused the issue - but only can tell you what happened

if, for some reason, you rely on those automatic snapshot grub.cfg updates I recommend to at least check and manual recreate grug.cfg after update before rebooting - although I do appreciate your "reboot after update"

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#5 2025-09-16 01:43:10

darcmage
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Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

Found another report from someone using the G arch variant this time, same version of grub in all instances. I updated my laptop without issue right before updating my desktop (both on arch). This is very unusual and affecting barely anybody.

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#6 2025-09-16 10:31:32

cryptearth
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Registered: 2024-02-03
Posts: 1,730

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

well - it affects enough people to spawn such topic from time to time
unfortunately most never come to a conclusion of what was the actual trigger of the config ending up blank so its hard to analyze or debug unless you make debug logs default with such setups to have something afterwards
whatever was the cause it seems "gone" for now - but I still recommend to keep an eye on the grub.cfg between update and reboot - maybe you can spot it next time

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#7 2025-09-22 19:44:32

darcmage
Member
Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

Weekly update yesterday went off without a hitch. Everything in /boot looked normal. Updated again today and saw a grub-btrfs.cfg.bkp file and an empty grub-btrfs.new file but no grub-btrfs.cfg. Rather than reboot and chroot, decided to regenerate grub and this time, a normal grub-btrfs.cfg was present. Couldn't find anything unusual in logs. Unable to find any hints in the repo or searching online.

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#8 2025-09-23 08:11:52

cryptearth
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Registered: 2024-02-03
Posts: 1,730

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

hm, wild guess in the blue this sounds like either a race condition or silent failure
maybe the pacman log can give insights in terms of what packages were updated when all went smooth and which were updated when it failed
at least the backup seems to work - although weird why to create a .new file then
usually it's either backup (often moved inplace to *.bak) and then write the new config - or don't touch the current config but create a .new file for review and user management
creating both sounds wrong

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#9 2025-09-23 13:30:49

darcmage
Member
Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

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#10 2025-09-23 16:44:03

Head_on_a_Stick
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From: The Wirral
Registered: 2014-02-20
Posts: 8,999
Website

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

There is a new version of the grub-btrfs package in [Extra-Testing], that may have a fix for your problem.

This looks relevant: https://github.com/Antynea/grub-btrfs/pull/289


Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

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#11 2025-09-23 17:11:58

darcmage
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Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

I looked into that issue early on and correct me if I'm wrong, that fix seems to address a conflict with timeshift-autosnap. I've always had updateGrub=false in my timeshift-autosnap.conf. It's possible the new version could also fix whatever it is I'm experiencing. It's the inconsistency that's annoying me. This arch setup is a little over 7 months old and has been rock solid outside some initial teething pains due to user idiocy.

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#12 2025-09-24 21:29:10

cryptearth
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Registered: 2024-02-03
Posts: 1,730

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

the inconsistency likely comes from "what packages causes the regen of grub.cfg to trigger?"
if, for example, you update the kernel and because of that a new snapshot is created - and then it breaks - but it works fine when no kernel update happens - it could be either some issue with the package that got updated - or the hook the update triggered

again: I don't use this stuff and hence can't really help aside from "that's what you experience - here's what might cause it"

how about adding an additional custom config in like 40_custom to at least have some bootable entry that's always there even if the generation of the snap shot menu fails? it should be able to be setup in a way iike "generic boot the most recent one"

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#13 2025-09-28 16:15:53

darcmage
Member
Registered: 2021-07-22
Posts: 11

Re: All GRUB entries except for UEFI gone after update

Not a bad idea for a workaround. I'm still stuck on the why. When I get to the fix-it stage, I'll think about it. For now, I just do a ls /boot/grub at the end of my update script to check the files. I guess it wouldn't be hard to monitor grub-btrfs.cfg and trigger regeneration if it doesn't look right.

Nothing to report from today's update.

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