Debian Bug report logs - #557992
grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Daniel Schepler <dschepler@gmail.com>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:20:15 -0800

Package: grub-pc
Version: 1.97+20091124-1
Severity: grave

After updating to the latest version of grub-pc, I couldn't boot my system at 
all.  It kept complaining that it didn't understand "if" or "fi" and never got 
to any sort of prompt.  I had to use a rescue DVD and edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg 
to comment out the if...fi blocks.  Even then, it didn't understand "menuentry" 
and dumped me into a "rescue>" prompt, where I had to enter boot parameters by 
hand.

I tried executing a grub-install '(hd0)' after I got the system to boot, but 
that didn't improve anything.
-- 
Daniel Schepler

Message #10 received at 557992-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>

To: Daniel Schepler <dschepler@gmail.com>, 557992-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:28:40 +0100

Version: 1.97+20091124-2

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:20:15AM -0800, Daniel Schepler wrote:
> Package: grub-pc
> Version: 1.97+20091124-1

How did you install 1.97+20091124-1 ?  We uploaded -2 before -1 migrated
to the archive.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Message #11 received at 557992-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Daniel Schepler <dschepler@gmail.com>

To: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>

Cc: 557992-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:41:58 -0800

On Wednesday 25 November 2009 11:28:40 Robert Millan wrote:
> Version: 1.97+20091124-2
> 
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:20:15AM -0800, Daniel Schepler wrote:
> > Package: grub-pc
> > Version: 1.97+20091124-1
> 
> How did you install 1.97+20091124-1 ?  We uploaded -2 before -1 migrated
> to the archive.

I don't know, but it's definitely there in /var/log/dpkg.log.  The -2 version 
looks like it works fine, though.
-- 
Daniel Schepler

Message #16 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: jguthrie@brokersys.com (Jonathan Guthrie)

To: 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:15:38 -0600

I don't know how it happened, either, but this bug bit me, too.

I upgraded my amd64 architecture laptop from ftp.us.debian.org around
7 AM CST (13:00 or so UTC) and was unable to come out of hibernation
later.
-- 
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
Sto pro veritate
http://www.brokersys.com/~jguthrie/links.html

Message #21 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Edward J. Gower" <egower@ptd.net>

To: 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:03:48 -0500

I think version mentioned is incorrect. My problems started with this
version:

Package: grub-pc
Priority: extra
Section: admin
Installed-Size: 1892
Maintainer: GRUB Maintainers <pkg-grub-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Source: grub2
Version: 1.97+20091125-1

Message #26 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Paul Seelig <pseelig@debian.org>

To: 557992@bugs.debian.org

Cc: "Edward J. Gower" <egower@ptd.net>

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:35:16 +0100

Just for the record, my old ThinkPad T23 become unbootable with the very
same symptons after upgrading it to this 1.97+20091125-1 version.
Luckily i still had 1.97+20091124-2 in the apt cache, and manually
downgrading to it "solved" the issue for the time being.

To me it looks like something went very wrong with the source code
somewhere between 1.97+20091124-2 and 1.97+20091125-1 which would be
worthwhile to investigate.

On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Edward J. Gower wrote:
> I think version mentioned is incorrect. My problems started with this
> version:
> 
> Package: grub-pc
> Priority: extra
> Section: admin
> Installed-Size: 1892
> Maintainer: GRUB Maintainers <pkg-grub-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
> Architecture: amd64
> Source: grub2
> Version: 1.97+20091125-1

Message #31 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>

To: pseelig@debian.org, 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:55:13 +0100

Am Samstag, den 28.11.2009, 22:35 +0100 schrieb Paul Seelig:
> Just for the record, my old ThinkPad T23 become unbootable with the
> very
> same symptons after upgrading it to this 1.97+20091125-1 version.
> Luckily i still had 1.97+20091124-2 in the apt cache, and manually
> downgrading to it "solved" the issue for the time being.
> 
> To me it looks like something went very wrong with the source code
> somewhere between 1.97+20091124-2 and 1.97+20091125-1 which would be
> worthwhile to investigate.
> 

24-1 was broken. 24-2 is actually the sid version before 24-1: 1115-1
25-1 should work fine if you're /etc/grub.d/ files got correctly
updated.
Please check the generated grub.cfg and make sure grub-install gets run
in the postinst or do it yourself.

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Message #36 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Paul Seelig <pseelig@debian.org>

To: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>

Cc: pseelig@debian.org, 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:22:36 +0100

Well, if upgrading to 25-1 does not by itself result in a working boot
configuration, it defintely shouldn't be the user who should be held
responsible to make sure that it works.  As an end user, i do expect
that the upgrade does work without any further intervention. If 25-1
does not work although you think it should, then it is simply broken.

For what it's worth, i didn't run any manual grub-install while before
upgrading to 25-1. In case it is required for grub2 to work after the
upgrade, it should be done automagically via the postinst without any
need for user intervention.

Thanks a lot for you work and effort!

On 11/28/2009 10:55 PM, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> 24-1 was broken. 24-2 is actually the sid version before 24-1: 1115-1
> 25-1 should work fine if you're /etc/grub.d/ files got correctly
> updated.
> Please check the generated grub.cfg and make sure grub-install gets run
> in the postinst or do it yourself.
> 

Message #41 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>

To: pseelig@debian.org

Cc: 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:08:52 +0100

Am Sonntag, den 29.11.2009, 00:22 +0100 schrieb Paul Seelig:
> Well, if upgrading to 25-1 does not by itself result in a working boot
> configuration, it defintely shouldn't be the user who should be held
> responsible to make sure that it works.  As an end user, i do expect
> that the upgrade does work without any further intervention. If 25-1
> does not work although you think it should, then it is simply broken.

Well we need more information how it's broken. Maybe it already helps if
you would just attach the 25-1 generated grub.cfg
In the 24-1 one there was a syntax error in it which completely broke
our parser. But unfortunately nobody thought that the grub.cfg could be
just wrong and not the C code in GRUB itself.

> For what it's worth, i didn't run any manual grub-install while before
> upgrading to 25-1. In case it is required for grub2 to work after the
> upgrade, it should be done automagically via the postinst without any
> need for user intervention.

We have already a debconf prompt for this. But it seems that people
either don't see it or just don't care about it etc.

> Thanks a lot for you work and effort!

> On 11/28/2009 10:55 PM, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> > 24-1 was broken. 24-2 is actually the sid version before 24-1:
> 1115-1
> > 25-1 should work fine if you're /etc/grub.d/ files got correctly
> > updated.
> > Please check the generated grub.cfg and make sure grub-install gets
> run
> > in the postinst or do it yourself.
> > 

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Message #46 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Paul Seelig <pseelig@debian.org>

To: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>

Cc: pseelig@debian.org, 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:49:52 +0100

On 11/29/2009 09:08 AM, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> In the 24-1 one there was a syntax error in it which completely broke
> our parser. But unfortunately nobody thought that the grub.cfg could be
> just wrong and not the C code in GRUB itself.
> 
After having successfully rebooted today with 24-2, i took a security
copy of the properly working grub.cfg, and installed 25-1, making sure
that grub.cfg is updated. After that i compared both with each other,
and there was not a single difference.

> We have already a debconf prompt for this. But it seems that people
> either don't see it or just don't care about it etc.
> 
Hmmm, so maybe here we have the issue? If running grub-install again is
definitely required for a workable boot configuration, then this might
be the point where it fails. I never saw any debconf prompt, and thus
didn't recognize the need to run grub-install. I have had configured
debconf to never ask me any questions with a priority less than medium.
But even after setting it to the lowest possible option i was not shown
any prompt asking to run grub-install.

What i did now was to manually run grub-install on the drive, in order
to make sure that grub is definitely updated. And this finally resulted
in a properly bootable system.

Thanks for your help!

Cheers
P. *8^)

Message #51 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>

To: pseelig@debian.org

Cc: 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:10:48 +0100

Am Sonntag, den 29.11.2009, 20:49 +0100 schrieb Paul Seelig:
> On 11/29/2009 09:08 AM, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> > In the 24-1 one there was a syntax error in it which completely
> broke
> > our parser. But unfortunately nobody thought that the grub.cfg could
> be
> > just wrong and not the C code in GRUB itself.
> > 
> After having successfully rebooted today with 24-2, i took a security
> copy of the properly working grub.cfg, and installed 25-1, making sure
> that grub.cfg is updated. After that i compared both with each other,
> and there was not a single difference.
> 
> > We have already a debconf prompt for this. But it seems that people
> > either don't see it or just don't care about it etc.
> > 
> Hmmm, so maybe here we have the issue? If running grub-install again
> is
> definitely required for a workable boot configuration, then this might
> be the point where it fails. I never saw any debconf prompt, and thus
> didn't recognize the need to run grub-install. I have had configured
> debconf to never ask me any questions with a priority less than
> medium.
> But even after setting it to the lowest possible option i was not
> shown
> any prompt asking to run grub-install.
> 
> What i did now was to manually run grub-install on the drive, in order
> to make sure that grub is definitely updated. And this finally
> resulted
> in a properly bootable system.
> 
> Thanks for your help!

If grub.cfg is identical and the postinst doestn't run grub-install,
then the only thing in /boot/grub which changes between 1115-1 (= 24-2)
and 25-1 is the font we use as source to generate GRUB's unifont.pf2 and
ascii.pf2

But if you only have ASCII chars in the menu entry names then it
shouldn't at all make a difference.

This shows if debconf thinks if you saw that prompt already or not
  echo FGET grub-pc/install_devices seen | debconf-communicate

`sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc' hopefully shows it then.


But usually it's not needed. But in the past this revelead some already
fixed parser bugs or if new features get added they of course need an
update of GRUB itself to work.

> Cheers
> P. *8^)

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Message #56 received at 557992@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Paul Seelig <pseelig@debian.org>

To: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>

Cc: 557992@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#557992: grub-pc: Booting is completely broken

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:57:17 +0100

On 11/29/2009 09:10 PM, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> But if you only have ASCII chars in the menu entry names then it
> shouldn't at all make a difference.
> 
Yes, the files are all ASCII only.

> This shows if debconf thinks if you saw that prompt already or not
>   echo FGET grub-pc/install_devices seen | debconf-communicate
> 
[root]~ # echo FGET grub-pc/install_devices seen | debconf-communicate
0 true

> `sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc' hopefully shows it then.
> 
Yes, executing this command manually indeed shows a dialog asking for an
update by running grub-install on the boot device. Now we need to find
out why it was not shown before...

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