Bug 1070876

Summary: Fedora installer won’t start at all in UEFI mode
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Marcus Husar <marcus.husar>
Component: kernelAssignee: Kernel Maintainer List <kernel-maint>
Status: CLOSED INSUFFICIENT_DATA QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 20CC: gansalmon, g.kaviyarasu, itamar, jonathan, kernel-maint, madhu.chinakonda, mchehab, vanmeeuwen+fedora
Target Milestone: ---Flags: jforbes: needinfo?
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2014-12-10 15:02:52 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Attachments:
Description Flags
Screenshot of grub2 captured with 'set debug=all'
none
efivars from Ubuntu 14.04 live media none

Description Marcus Husar 2014-02-27 16:06:44 UTC 
Created attachment 868606 [details]
Screenshot of grub2 captured with 'set debug=all'

Description of problem:
My machine (Lenovo S531) is not able to start the Fedora installer. I tested version 19, 20 and even rawhide live media (nightly). I have however no problems with booting an Ubuntu 13.10 DVD in UEFI mode. A Windows 7 DVD works, too.

Grub 2 is loading without problems (with and without secure boot). I can see "Install Fedora 20" and the other options. None of them does anything.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Versions found on Fedora-20-x86_64-DVD.iso as DVD or flash drive created with livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr --efi.

How reproducible:
Just start a Fedora installer from DVD or flash drive.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Fedora installer DVD or flashdrive
2. Hit "Install Fedora 20" or any other option
3. Remove boot option quiet (optional)

Actual results:
System hangs, just says "Booting a command list".

Expected results:
The installer should start as in BIOS mode.

Additional info:
Maybe this a grub or a kernel bug. I tried to debug what grub does by manipulating the grub.cfg on my flash drive. It just reads some data from hd0,gpt1 (the EFI partition) and after all just stops. You can see what happens after grub stops reading data from the FAT partition on the attached screenshot.

According to Matthew Garrett showing "Booting a command list" may indicate a crashing kernel.

http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/22028.html:
„Sounds like the kernel is crashing very early in startup.“

Is there anything I can do to help debugging this problem? Just ask me to provide some useful data.
Comment 1 David Shea 2014-03-12 19:52:37 UTC 
Reassigning to kernel based on the "Sounds like the kernel is crashing very early in startup" assessment.
Comment 2 Justin M. Forbes 2014-05-21 19:41:03 UTC 
*********** MASS BUG UPDATE **************

We apologize for the inconvenience.  There is a large number of bugs to go through and several of them have gone stale.  Due to this, we are doing a mass bug update across all of the Fedora 20 kernel bugs.

Fedora 20 has now been rebased to 3.14.4-200.fc20.  Please test this kernel update (or newer) and let us know if you issue has been resolved or if it is still present with the newer kernel.

If you experience different issues, please open a new bug report for those.
Comment 3 Marcus Husar 2014-05-28 14:29:40 UTC 
I downloaded a Rawhide iso to check if this one would work, yesterday. Grub is loading properly with and without secure boot (usually secure boot is disabled). After selecting a boot entry (Install Fedora …) I see just an underscore and nothing else. It’s the same as before.

I’ll try to debug this once more. Maybe I should give a RHEL 7 iso a try.

Could a developer or maintainer of shim, grub, or the kernel please provide some information how I could possibly debug this problem? I tried many debug flags on the grub command line. But there was never a message from the kernel. Maybe the kernel isn’t started at all? In the attached screenshot you can see that grub allocates memory for two files. I’d think the kernel and the initramfs. That’s the last thing that happens.

I have no boot problems with Windows or Ubuntu installers. I have never tried others.
Comment 4 Marcus Husar 2014-08-08 11:52:18 UTC 
Created attachment 925161 [details]
efivars from Ubuntu 14.04 live media

Because my Thinkpad S531 had serious hardware and firmware problems I couldn’t further investigate the boot problems. The S531 now was acknowledged as DOA (dead on arrival).

Last week I got a new Thinkpad S540. The problems with Redhat/Fedora boot media still persist. I tested a rawhide live cd (http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=7214456) and RHEL 7 RC install media.

I just grabbed efivars from Ubuntu live media. It seems rather messy. Maybe Fedora has problems with some EFI variables.
Comment 5 Justin M. Forbes 2014-11-13 16:04:05 UTC 
*********** MASS BUG UPDATE **************

We apologize for the inconvenience.  There is a large number of bugs to go through and several of them have gone stale.  Due to this, we are doing a mass bug update across all of the Fedora 20 kernel bugs.

Fedora 20 has now been rebased to 3.17.2-200.fc20.  Please test this kernel update (or newer) and let us know if you issue has been resolved or if it is still present with the newer kernel.

If you have moved on to Fedora 21, and are still experiencing this issue, please change the version to Fedora 21.

If you experience different issues, please open a new bug report for those.
Comment 6 Justin M. Forbes 2014-12-10 15:02:52 UTC 
This bug is being closed with INSUFFICIENT_DATA as there has not been a response in over 3 weeks. If you are still experiencing this issue, please reopen and attach the relevant data from the latest kernel you are running and any data that might have been requested previously.