Grub fails: symbol 'grub_is_lockdown' not found

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1

Hi, Manjaro booted to a black screen after a flock of updates earlier this week. I forced reboot and I believe I got to pick a kernel this time, and I probably chose 6.8 (my memory is rather hazy but I believe it is what happened, since it had probably just failed booting on 6.9).

Now, I rarely use my laptop, it spends most of its time sleeping lid shut. I wake it up once or twice a week and reboot every 6 weeks on average. So after this boot hiccup I may have rebooted it clean to make sure the problem wasn’t reappearing, but I’m not sure.

However back to sleep it went, and then I ran some more updates and installed code (not vscode but the up-to-date code package). It asked to reboot, which I did, and booted back to a black screen.

I forced reboot and got “symbol ‘grub_is_lockdown’ not found” and it’s all I ever get now.

error: symbol 'grub_is_lockdown' not found. 
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue>

I ended up following Manjaro’s wiki and have reinstalled Grub through manjaro-chroot from a Live Manjaro several times now but that hasn’t changed the outcome.

Something that seems singular about my case is that my Grub rescue commands are very limited, I can “ls” but not “cat”, I can’t “reboot”… there are a lot of commands it doesn’t know, it feels I’m on a super light rescue shell.

I noticed from Grub rescue that sda1 (my EFI partition) filesystem is unknown. However from Live I can see it’s FAT:

$ lsblk -f                                                                                ✔ 
NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL             UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                       
├─sda1 vfat   FAT32                   F8ED-0A5D                             299.1M     0% /mnt/boot/efi
│                                                                                         /mnt/boot/efi
└─sda2 ext4   1.0                     e960bf94-9eb7-461b-8ad3-c6a8f6489a9c   17.1G    91% /mnt

I noticed an interesting (to me) comment about when you get to rescue on an arch discussion, whether it’s when Grub just started from UEFI or when it actually starts loading the OS. In my case it looks and feels like it’s the former, right out from UEFI.

Here’s a journalctl from the system (from manjaro-chroot from Live):

# journalctl --boot=-1 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 25 10:23:52 EliteBook kernel: ni_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin"
Jul 25 10:23:52 EliteBook kernel: [drm:evergreen_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
Jul 25 10:23:52 EliteBook kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
Jul 25 11:29:00 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[710]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:29:00 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[710]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.

I traced things back to when it went south which seems to be the 23rd:

[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-1 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 25 10:23:52 EliteBook kernel: ni_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin"
Jul 25 10:23:52 EliteBook kernel: [drm:evergreen_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
Jul 25 10:23:52 EliteBook kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
Jul 25 11:29:00 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[710]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:29:00 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[710]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-2 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 25 10:22:45 EliteBook kernel: ni_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin"
Jul 25 10:22:45 EliteBook kernel: [drm:evergreen_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
Jul 25 10:22:45 EliteBook kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
Jul 25 11:22:42 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[705]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:22:42 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[705]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-3 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 25 10:19:21 EliteBook kernel: ni_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin"
Jul 25 10:19:21 EliteBook kernel: [drm:evergreen_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
Jul 25 10:19:21 EliteBook kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
Jul 25 11:21:32 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[842]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:21:33 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[842]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-4 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 25 10:15:08 EliteBook kernel: ni_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin"
Jul 25 10:15:08 EliteBook kernel: [drm:evergreen_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
Jul 25 10:15:08 EliteBook kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
Jul 25 11:17:28 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[704]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:17:28 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[704]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:17:32 EliteBook kernel: watchdog: watchdog0: watchdog did not stop!
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-5 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 25 10:12:31 EliteBook kernel: ni_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin"
Jul 25 10:12:31 EliteBook kernel: [drm:evergreen_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
Jul 25 10:12:31 EliteBook kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
Jul 25 11:13:58 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[859]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:13:58 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[859]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-6 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 23 13:35:44 EliteBook lightdm[1301]: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
Jul 24 13:52:56 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 24 13:52:56 EliteBook pulseaudio[1417]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.bluez.Error.DoesNotExist:Provider does not exist
Jul 24 13:53:04 EliteBook lightdm[10260]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jul 25 10:54:06 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 25 10:54:06 EliteBook pulseaudio[1417]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.bluez.Error.DoesNotExist:Provider does not exist
Jul 25 10:55:20 EliteBook lightdm[12645]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jul 25 11:11:14 EliteBook pulseaudio[1417]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply:Remote peer disconnected
Jul 25 11:11:19 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[901]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:11:19 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[901]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 25 11:11:21 EliteBook kernel: watchdog: watchdog0: watchdog did not stop!
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-7 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 14 15:52:54 EliteBook lightdm[1318]: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
Jul 17 13:28:11 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 17 13:28:11 EliteBook pulseaudio[1431]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 17 13:28:12 EliteBook bluetoothd[1273]: src/adv_monitor.c:btd_adv_monitor_power_down() Unexpected NULL btd_adv_monitor_manager object upon power down
Jul 17 13:28:18 EliteBook lightdm[6380]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jul 20 10:58:48 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 20 10:58:48 EliteBook pulseaudio[1431]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 20 10:58:54 EliteBook lightdm[14593]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jul 23 13:21:39 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 23 13:21:39 EliteBook pulseaudio[1431]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 23 13:21:45 EliteBook lightdm[15775]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jul 23 13:32:57 EliteBook systemd-coredump[23728]: [LNK] Process 23723 (firefox) of user 1000 dumped core.
                                                   
                                                   Stack trace of thread 23723:
                                                   #0  0x00007f7a994a590a n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x2390a)
                                                   #1  0x00007f7a994896c6 n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x76c6)
                                                   #2  0x00007f7a9948ac98 n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x8c98)
                                                   #3  0x00007f7a9948e99c n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0xc99c)
                                                   #4  0x00007f7a99483523 _dl_catch_exception (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x1523)
                                                   #5  0x00007f7a9948e0e0 n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0xc0e0)
                                                   #6  0x00007f7a99483523 _dl_catch_exception (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x1523)
                                                   #7  0x00007f7a9948e534 n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0xc534)
                                                   #8  0x00007f7a98ea29e4 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x8e9e4)
                                                   #9  0x00007f7a99483523 _dl_catch_exception (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x1523)
                                                   #10 0x00007f7a99483679 n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x1679)
                                                   #11 0x00007f7a98ea24c3 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x8e4c3)
                                                   #12 0x00007f7a98ea2a9f dlopen (libc.so.6 + 0x8ea9f)
                                                   #13 0x00005eac626f98e7 n/a (firefox + 0x648e7)
                                                   #14 0x00005eac626d3944 n/a (firefox + 0x3e944)
                                                   #15 0x00007f7a98e39c88 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x25c88)
                                                   #16 0x00007f7a98e39d4c __libc_start_main (libc.so.6 + 0x25d4c)
                                                   #17 0x00005eac6273ba65 _start (firefox + 0xa6a65)
                                                   ELF object binary architecture: AMD x86-64
Jul 23 13:35:19 EliteBook pulseaudio[1431]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply:Remote peer disconnected
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:21 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:26 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.bluez' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:26 EliteBook pulseaudio[24470]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not activate remote peer 'org.bluez': activation request failed: unit is invalid
Jul 23 13:35:27 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 23 13:35:27 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[720]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-8 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 03 21:10:40 EliteBook lightdm[1312]: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
Jul 07 08:48:17 EliteBook pulseaudio[1427]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 07 08:48:17 EliteBook bluetoothd[1268]: src/adv_monitor.c:btd_adv_monitor_power_down() Unexpected NULL btd_adv_monitor_manager object upon power down
Jul 07 08:48:52 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 07 08:48:52 EliteBook pulseaudio[1427]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 07 08:49:27 EliteBook pulseaudio[1427]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 07 08:50:01 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to deactivate keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 07 08:50:01 EliteBook kernel: atkbd serio0: Failed to enable keyboard on isa0060/serio0
Jul 07 08:50:01 EliteBook pulseaudio[1427]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
[manjaro /]# journalctl --boot=-9 --priority=3 --no-pager 
Jul 03 21:08:46 EliteBook lightdm[1301]: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
Jul 03 21:09:19 EliteBook pulseaudio[1416]: org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1.UnregisterBatteryProvider() Failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject:Method "UnregisterBatteryProvider" with signature "o" on interface "org.bluez.BatteryProviderManager1" doesn't exist
Jul 03 21:09:20 EliteBook bluetoothd[1231]: src/adv_monitor.c:btd_adv_monitor_power_down() Unexpected NULL btd_adv_monitor_manager object upon power down
Jul 03 21:10:36 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[793]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.
Jul 03 21:10:37 EliteBook dbus-broker-launch[793]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' failed.

Now I just found out tonight about journalctl and what to make of it so next thing on my list is investigating this radeon problem. Does it have anything to do with sda1 filesystem unknown from within Grub? Is it among the first things being loaded from Grub? Does it lie in the EFI partition?

If you know your way around Grub, I’d appreciate a little push :innocent:

2

Are you following the guide and chrooting into the existing install while using a live USB?

It sounds you have failed to do so and instead are in the grub rescue shell.

Which is an entirely different scenario … a quick search guide is here:

But while that is a thing - I rather doubt it will be helpful to you.

According to other posts here
(ex: Symbol `grub_is_lockdown` not found - #6 by wils0n)

You will need to reinstall grub, which cannot be had from the rescue shell.

According to other posts
(ex: [Testing Update] 2021-06-08 - Kernels, Cinnamon 5.0, Gnome 40.2, Cutefish 0.2, Deepin, Firefox - #52 by Termy)

This is simply the wrong path used for the ESP.
(in that case also fixed by reinstalling grub using the correct path)

3

Hi cscs, thanks for your interest in my question and sorry if I haven’t made this clear (I’ll re-read my post to avoid confusion).

I have been doing practically everything from a Manjaro Live, chrooted into my non-functional system.

I have installed Grub several times now to no avail. I wish I could just set the ‘grub_is_lockdown’ variable myself at this point :grin:

4

Right, I’ve been beating around the bush with this one, and that’s because I wasn’t too sure of how far I can stray from the path before I start overwriting things I won’t be able to put back the way they might have been.

I’m giving this a rest for tonight and will try this first thing tomorrow then.

I just tried it but it seems it’s not a solution so I kept /boot/efi for efi-directory:

[manjaro /]# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=manjaro --recheck
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
grub-install: error: /boot doesn't look like an EFI partition.
[manjaro /]# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=manjaro --recheck
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.