Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

Acetate · 2010-04-11 13:56:44

Hello,

I've just upgraded my system a few hours ago and a new kernel build happened. Problem is the system hasn't managed to boot this new kernel since then. It just hangs forever on grub command line without any error message:

  Booting 'Arch Linux'

root   (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/d769f619-b8b2-478f-bbdf-fbedb209afeb ro vga=795
   [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x3400, size=0x1f9a20]

I've tried with "root=/dev/sda1" and without the vga option but nothing changes. Behaviour is the same for the fallback image. I would have tried to replace the current kernel with the former one but it seems any older version gets deleted upon kernel upgrade.

If it's of any interest, my last pacman -Syu with new kernel installation was yesterday and everything worked fine afterwards.

Thank you for any help!

Leonid.I · 2010-04-11 15:25:10

I would have tried to replace the current kernel with the former one but it seems any older version gets deleted upon kernel upgrade.

Have you done pacman -Sc? If not, your old packages are in /var/cache/pacman/pkg...
I still don't understand your problem though

Gen2ly · 2010-04-12 04:14:06

Does 'root=/dev/sda1' actually point to your '/'? Find it kinda uncommon that your filesystem is ext2.

Acetate · 2010-04-12 08:33:09

Hello,

Thanks for your replies.

I will look in /var/cache/pacman/pkg (using a live cd) but I doubt pacman also keeps the old kernel images, right?

Leonid.I wrote:

I still don't understand your problem though

Well,

Acetate wrote:

It just hangs forever on grub command line without any error message

Can't really see how to make it clearer than that.

Gen2ly wrote:

Does 'root=/dev/sda1' actually point to your '/'? Find it kinda uncommon that your filesystem is ext2.

Mm.. I didn't pay much attention to this line but (hd0,0) (a.k.a. /dev/sda1) is actually an ext4 partition, not ext2. Do you think that may be the source of the problem? Please notice that I can access it and read from it using Arch live cd (I didn't do extensive testing/filesystem checking though). And yes this is the partition for '/'.

Leonid.I · 2010-04-12 15:42:38

Pacman does keep as many old packages as there are, that is the reason why /var should be at least of the size of your /, until you make -Sc to remove uninstalled packages. I also have ext4 /, which is IDed as ext2fs by grub, so I think it's OK.

If you made -Syu on Apr 10, you should be running 2.6.33.2, right? Is this the last kernel, which booted cleanly? What exactly happened after that? Besides, what is your arch? Apparently, hanging grub is not something very common.

Acetate · 2010-04-12 16:25:44

Yes I think (with absolutely no certitude) that the 2.6.33.2 fails and the clean kernel from Apr 10 is 2.6.32.x or something. Both system upgrades (on Apr 10 and 11) were quite big so I didn't look into the details. The system worked perfectly until sunday morning: I started the computer, did a second -Syu and did a reboot after I saw the kernel had been upgraded, then nothing 'started happening'.

If it may be of importance the upgrade of Saturday was the first in nearly two months but, as I stated, everything seemed to work fine after that.

Also, I use the 64 bits distribution.

Could I somehow reinstall the kernel package from Apr 10 on my '/' using the live cd? I'm not really comfortable when it comes to administration tasks, I barely do anything else than installing/removing packages and tweaking X11.

Under Debian GNU/Linux I used to compile new kernel versions 'by hand', keeping the old image as the fallback in grub, but stopped doing backups since I started using Arch... guess I shouldn't have (ceased doing backups, not using Arch: it's great!).

Thank you for your time by the way, I'll try to gather more information when I get home.

Last edited by Acetate (2010-04-12 16:29:22)

Leonid.I · 2010-04-13 00:17:41

Just do

pacman -r /path/to/root -U kernel...

or add -f flag, if it complains. Your last pacman.log & everything.log & menu.lst would be useful too, BTW.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-04-11 13:56:44

Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

#2 2010-04-11 15:25:10

Re: Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

#3 2010-04-12 04:14:06

Re: Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

#4 2010-04-12 08:33:09

Re: Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

#5 2010-04-12 15:42:38

Re: Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

#6 2010-04-12 16:25:44

Re: Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

#7 2010-04-13 00:17:41

Re: Kernel boot hangs on grub command line after -Syu update on 2010-04-11

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