Debian Linux PC stopped booting after update when external USB device is plugged in (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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EDIT 2024-02-18: Solved! JohnnyMac was right, I have no clue why, but the boot priority changed and the reboot after the update caused the issue to manifest. I have excluded the device from the bootable devices in the BIOS and it boots again.

I figured out that it was an issue with my external USB dual bay HDD enclosure. It doesn't boot when it's plugged in, even after removing it from /etc/fstab. It doesn't even reach the GRUB menu when plugged in. It only displays a blinking cursor, doesn't allow switching the terminal with CTRL + ALT + FX but does restart with CTRL + ALT + DELETE. It's able to reach emergency mode when the device isn't plugged in and is able to boot fine if it's removed /etc/fstab. Does anyone know what could be causing this issue? Everything works fine when it's plugged in after booting up the system.

These were the packages updated:

base-files
bind9-dnsutils
bind9-host
bind9-libs
fish
fish-common
gnutls-bin
libcpupower1
libcryptsetup12
libgnutls-dane0
libgnutls30
libisl23
libnss-mymachines
libnss-systemd
libpam-systemd
libsystemd-shared
libsystemd0
libudev1
libunbound8
libxencall1
libxendevicemodel1
libxenevtchn1
libxenforeignmemory1
libxengnttab1
libxenhypfs1
libxenmisc4.17
libxenstore4
libxentoolcore1
libxentoollog1
linux-cpupower
linux-image-6.1.0-18-amd64
linux-image-amd64
ovmf
qemu-block-extra
qemu-system-common
qemu-system-data
qemu-system-gui
qemu-system-x86
qemu-utils
systemd
systemd-container
systemd-sysv
systemd-timesyncd
tailscale
tar
tzdata
udev
usb.ids
usbutils
usr-is-merged

EDIT: Quickly plugging it in after GRUB has loaded seems to work.

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Are you sure it's not trying to boot to the USB device, seeing grub is not showing up? Check your bios boot priority when the USB is plugged in.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Thanks. I didn't think this was the solution because I haven't touched the BIOS, but I tried anyway and it worked. I have no clue how or why, but the external drive somehow got priority over the internal SSD, even though I didn't even touch the BIOS for at least a month. I have excluded the device from booting in the BIOS and hope it won't change again.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Glad it works. 👍

[-] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

I've seen this issue before caused by buggy BIOS/UEFI implementations interacting with some USB devices where they seem to get stuck initializing. It's not clear to me how those packages could affect a problem that stops your bootloader from reaching the menu.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Check your grub config, it's more likely to be that rather than fstab.

this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024

20 points (95.5% liked)

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