Ubuntu

Boot problems after upgrade to kernel 4.15.0-48 (18.04LTS)

Asked by Michael

Edit:
After further investigation, have identified that the actual symptom is that 4.15.0-48 requires a second ´recovery´ boot to get it up and running. Using Xubuntu desktop environment

Symptom:
Boot problem appeared after update from kernel version 4.15.0-47 to 4.15.0-48
Problem occurs in 4.15.0-48 kernel, but not in 4.15.0-47

1) Seems to boot OK, except at the point where (I guess) it loads the monitor/screen, after which it can’t properly render anything to the screen.
Shows several lines of multicoloured finely pixelated patterns at the top of the screen (sometimes a couple of lines, sometimes about the top third), then nothing happens (maybe its finished the boot and reached the desktop login screen?).

2) I have to do a hard/forced shutdown by pressing and holding the power button until it turns off.
3) Upon reboot, recognises that it wasn’t previously shutdown properly, so follows a different boot process, and gives me the grub menu. Then it boots OK, even if I select the 4.15.0-48 kernel option

4) Then when I shutdown normally, the next time I boot normally, it has the same problem.
5) However, if I esc into the grub menu during this normal boot, I can
     i) select 4.15.0-47 kernel and it boots no problem; or
     ii) select 4.15.0-48 kernel and same boot problem happens

Hardware:
(ancient!) HP Compag 6710b, Intel Core2 Duo T7100 @ 1.8GHz, RAM 4GB, PM965 chipset with Intel integrated graphics controller GM965/GL960
Note: I've recently learnt that BIOS is NOT up to date

Installed Environment:
Ubuntu 18.04.2LTS 32bit with Xubuntu Desktop, installed from MinimalCD a few weeks ago, no dual boot, single partition, originally 4.15.0-47 kernel
(with kernel option ¨video=SVIDEO-1:d¨ added to grub command line as workaround for bug #1767808)

Actually similar to a recent question on Ask Ubuntu (presumably also the latest kernel released for 18.04.2LTS) https://askubuntu.com/q/1138426 .

Still trying to determine if its a problem at my end (eg: BIOS), or an actual kernel bug that I should report?

Thanks

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Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

If you boot an older kernel is it OK?

Revision history for this message
Michael (perthmichael) said : 		#2

Hi @actionparsnip Thanks for picking it up.

Yes, if I boot into 4.15.0-47 it works again.
I do not have any older kernel versions on the machine, just 4.15.0-47 and 4.15.0-48

Have edited my original question to give a better description of the issue (see above)

I’m new to Linux, still not sure if its a bug or something wrong at my end. Have been googling/learning/troubleshooting...

Have tried:
1) fschk (from live DVD) - no problems
2) dpkg - couple of broken packages, but didn’t change the boot issues
3) memtest from grub menu – Completed. No errors detected. Memory test in BIOS Setup also successful.
## Note I recently upgraded RAM from 1GB to 4GB (I’m resurrecting an old laptop). This was before the kernel upgrade. It booted no problems after the RAM upgrade, recognises the 4GB (2x2GB) RAM in BIOS, in lshw and dmidecode and so on ##
4) booted from live DVD (Lubuntu 18.04), installed and ran boot-repair. It didn’t seem to find any problems, but it updated grub anyway. pastebin at http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/xFNZYYyHBB/

Yet to try:
Have learnt that my laptop BIOS (no UEFI) IS NOT the latest version.
Its about four versions out of date. Currently trying to work out how to do windows executable BIOS upgrades on a HP laptop without windows—and hopefully without bricking the machine!
So could this just be a BIOS update issue, or is it a kernel problem? That is where my troubleshooting is currently at.

Happy to provide more info if you think it may be a kernel (or xfce) bug. But I am new to linux, so will have to be spoon-fed the bash commands! Or happy to try the BIOS updates first, before calling it a bug. Will defer to your advice.

Thanks, Michael

Revision history for this message
Michael (perthmichael) said : 		#3

More info:

Have tried some additional troubleshooting/fixes - none of which worked...
1) tried command line parameter "systemd.restore_state=0" (thinking it might avoid whatever corrupt/wrong/problematic info might have been written into the journal during normal shutdown). But no difference.
Still seems to need a hard shutdown with corrupt/missing journal during boot (so it creates a fresh default one) before it takes me to grub menu and then boots successfully
2) tried different variations of setting the GRUB_GFXMODE resolution and "nomodeset" (still thinking it may be graphics related), but no change
3) Have removed "quiet splash" from command line...
Normal boot after normal shutdown seems to start off with screen res 1024x768, seems to crash at different spots, but always around about 'loading apparmor', and having trouble reading journal
Recovery boot after hard shutdown starts off in lower res 640x480, detects bad shutdown, overwrites journal, then boots successfully
(PS - Don't really know what I'm looking at)
4) installed and ran fwts. (Now I really don't know what I'm looking at.) But no critical errors. A couple of highs/mediums, mostly related to BIOS not reserving memory address space (which the kernel probably works around OK?) and ACPI (probably because the laptop BIOS keeps control, instead of handing over to the OS?)

Have not been able to update the laptop BIOS to F16, which updates Video BIOS to v1668 for the Intel Integrated Graphics. (HP windows executable won't unpack and create the bootable flash disk under Windows 10. Needs an older version of WMI. Not confident to experiment with DIY unpacking of proprietary BIOS updates. Waiting to track down a PC running Vista.)

However, Intel video BIOS may not be relevant to this issue, as I have since had SIMILAR PROBLEM on a DIFFERENT laptop which does not use Intel graphics. Other laptop is even older !!!

ASUS W1N Pentium M banias 1.7gHz, 1.5GB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 GPU, running same Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS i386/32Bit (forcepae) with Xubuntu desktop. Fresh install from minimal CD in early April, with kernel 4.15.0-47 originally. Working fine, until software updater installed 4.15.0-48. Now it won't even boot at all (hangs, black screen), and I can't even get into the grub menu to try the older kernel.

Original intent of this question was to ask if this was a kernel bug, or something wrong at my end. But now that I've tried everything I can think of, and now that a similar problem has happened on another laptop, I think I'll be filing a bug report.

Thanks, Michael

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