Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop

JaredBusch

I did have a Fedora 31 laptop (different model Dell than mine) spun up and logged in two weeks ago. I have ran updates on that one and rebooted. it is running fine.

But it has almost nothing installed. I was only testing some Nextcloud stuff on it.

Obsolesce

After it fails, doesn't journalctl give any indication of what's causing failures to boot?

JaredBusch

@Obsolesce said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

After it fails, doesn't journalctl give any indication of what's causing failures to boot?

it is in a boot loop. there is nothing to see.

if I choose to boot to recovery mode, it drops straight to emergency mode.

journalctl -xb retuns like 1200+ lines. going through that line by line was not something I felt like doing late in the day on Friday after Thanksgiving, while visiting friends.

at a glance it also looked like only the recovery mode boot was in that log.

JaredBusch

waiting on something to copy off the drive that I cannot find the second copy of. then i'll have it back in my laptop and ready to fuck with.

JaredBusch

The contents of /etc/grub.d seem identical on all three systems I have here.

My Desktop - have not tried to reboot
My Laptop - does not boot
Spare Laptop - reboots successfully.

flaxking

@stacksofplates said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

I'll have to check my laptop to compare kernels. Mine won't go to sleep. If I shut the lid and open it again it does a hard reboot instead of resuming from sleep.

Mine goes to sleep when I unplug it from power

black3dynamite

Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora

sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
# GRUB Environment Block
saved_entry=a0a0a0b0a0000000a0a000000a00aaaa-5.3.12-300.fc31.x86_64
menu_auto_hide=1
boot_success=1
kernelopts=root=/dev/mapper/fedora_user-root ro rd.lvm.lv=fedora_user/root rd.luks.uuid=luks-0aa0aa00-341a-0000-000a-a000a0a0aa70 rhgb quiet
boot_indeterminate=0

JaredBusch

@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora
sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv

There we go.. grubenv is missing on my laptop.

black3dynamite

@JaredBusch said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora
sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
There we go.. grubenv is missing on my laptop.

That can also be missing if you are not using UEFI. In fact, there shouldn't be nothing in /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/ if you using BIOS instead of UEFI.

sudo find /boot/ -name grub.cfg will output one of the following:

BIOS
/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

UEFI
/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg

JaredBusch

@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

@JaredBusch said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora
sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
There we go.. grubenv is missing on my laptop.
That can also be missing if you are not using UEFI. In fact, there shouldn't be nothing in /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/ if you using BIOS instead of UEFI.

sudo find /boot/ -name grub.cfg will output one of the following:

BIOS
/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

UEFI
/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg

It is (was) UEFI for certain. BIOS config is set to UEFI boot.

Obsolesce

@JaredBusch said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora
sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
There we go.. grubenv is missing on my laptop.

Remove grubenv, that's a nice update feature...

black3dynamite

@Obsolesce said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

@JaredBusch said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora
sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
There we go.. grubenv is missing on my laptop.
Remove grubenv, that's a nice update feature...

On UEFI system, /boot/grub2/grubenv is a symbolic link to /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv. Maybe an update to grub screwed up something.

black3dynamite

I don't even if know if this will fix grub or not. But here you go.

Create a new empty grubenv file in /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv.

sudo grub2-editenv /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv create

I noticed on my system, there is a symbolic of /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv in /boot/grub2/

sudo ln -sf /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv /boot/grub2/grubenv

Rebuild GRUB

sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg

Rebuild initramfs images

sudo dracut --force --regenerate-all

And then reboot.

JaredBusch

@Obsolesce said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

@JaredBusch said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:
Here's an example of my Grub setting using UEFI on Fedora
sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv
There we go.. grubenv is missing on my laptop.
Remove grubenv, that's a nice update feature...

The updates show that grub had changes. Shit happens with all OS.

grub2-common                    noarch 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 876 k
grub2-efi-x64                   x86_64 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 458 k
grub2-pc-modules                noarch 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 847 k
grub2-tools                     x86_64 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 1.8 M
grub2-tools-efi                 x86_64 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 469 k
grub2-tools-extra               x86_64 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 916 k
grub2-tools-minimal             x86_64 1:2.02-103.fc31           updates 552 k

JaredBusch

@black3dynamite said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

I don't even if know if this will fix grub or not. But here you go.

Create a new empty grubenv file in /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv.
sudo grub2-editenv /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv create
I noticed on my system, there is a symbolic of /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv in /boot/grub2/
sudo ln -sf /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubenv /boot/grub2/grubenv
Rebuild GRUB
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg
Rebuild initramfs images
sudo dracut --force --regenerate-all
And then reboot.

Actually, the /boot/efi/ folder was completely empty. No sub-folders or anything.
I made EFI/fedora in there and then the commands ran.

But no change in behavior

Obsolesce

@JaredBusch got a backup that happened to grab /boot...?

Or maybe copy what's needed from a working system?

JaredBusch

@Obsolesce said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

@JaredBusch got a backup that happened to grab /boot...?

Or maybe copy what's needed from a working system?

No backup since the data is sync'd.

Mostly I'm trying to figure out how to resolve without a reinstall if possible for knowledge sake. Not to save my system.

jmoore

So it was an update that did this?

JaredBusch

@jmoore said in Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop:

So it was an update that did this?

Had to be, as it was working. I shutdown to go home. Then it wasn't working.

jmoore

@JaredBusch Ok thanks, good to know.

Solved Fedora 31 stuck in a boot loop