Snapshots Menu in Grub Randomly Appearing and Disappearing!

Support
1

I just installed Manjaro, KDE, BTRFS, Snapper, BTRFS Assistant… etc. and updated.
I have configured BTRFS Assistant to take snapshots as usual and it is working and actually taking snapshots, hourly, with boot and I assume with installing/uninstalling.

I need to have the snapshot menu in Grub to be able to boot to earlier snapshots in case something happens.

The issue I have is that randomly upon rebooting the snapshots sub menu maybe there or maybe not there. It is like random. I couldn’t figure out what makes it appear or disappear.

I searched the forum and found this thread Manjaro Linux snapshots at GRUB does not display my snapshots and as mentioned there I tried sudo update-grub and rebooted and I saw the snapshot menu when rebooting. Rebooting again it is not there.

I wonder what is going on.
How can I keep it to be there all the time?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

UPDATE: Rebooted after doing this post and the menu appeared!
UPDATE: Rebooting again, black screen, reinstalled, do I really need such feature?

This is my system: `

   ~  inxi -Fxxx  :heavy_check_mark:
System:

    ~  inxi -Fxxx                                                                                     ✔ 
System:
  Host: mj Kernel: 6.11.10-2-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 14.2.1 clocksource: tsc
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.2.4 tk: Qt v: N/A wm: kwin_x11 vt: 2 dm: SDDM
    Distro: Manjaro base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: VivoBook_ASUSLaptop X415FAC_X415FA
    v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: X415FAC v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required>
    uuid: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: X415FAC.202
    date: 07/08/2021
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 32.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 32.2/37.1 Wh (86.8%)
    volts: 7.8 min: 7.8 model: ASUSTeK ASUS Battery type: Li-ion serial: N/A
    status: not charging cycles: 50
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core i3-10110U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    smt: enabled arch: Comet/Whiskey Lake note: check rev: C cache: L1: 128 KiB
    L2: 512 KiB L3: 4 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3451 min/max: 400/4100 cores: 1: 3451 2: 3451 3: 3451
    4: 3451 bogomips: 20810
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915
    v: kernel arch: Gen-9.5 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:9b41 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: IMC Networks USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-5:3 chip-ID: 13d3:56e6
    class-ID: 0e02 serial: 0000
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.14 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.4
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa
    dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.21x7.99")
    s-diag: 414mm (16.31") monitors: <missing: xrandr>
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: ChiMei InnoLux 0x14d6 res: 1366x768 dpi: 112
    size: 309x173mm (12.17x6.81") diag: 354mm (13.9") modes: 1366x768
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris platforms: device: 0 drv: iris
    device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris x11: drv: iris
    inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 24.2.7-arch1.1
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics (CML GT2)
    device-ID: 8086:9b41
  API: Vulkan v: 1.3.295 layers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib device: 0
    type: integrated-gpu driver: mesa intel device-ID: 8086:9b41
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:02c8 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.11.10-2-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.2.7 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Comet Lake PCH-LP CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:02f0 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: 7c:70:db:e2:29:ee
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) driver: btusb
    v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-10:4
    chip-ID: 8087:0aaa class-ID: e001
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 22.79 GiB (9.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: PC SN530
    SDBPNPZ-256G-1002 size: 238.47 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 tech: SSD
    serial: 2127HE443513 fw-rev: 21106000 temp: 37.9 C scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 238.17 GiB used: 18.2 GiB (7.6%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 584 KiB (0.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-3: /home size: 238.17 GiB used: 18.2 GiB (7.6%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-4: /var/log size: 238.17 GiB used: 18.2 GiB (7.6%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 512 MiB used: 243.4 MiB (47.5%) priority: -2
    file: /swap/swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 88.0 C pch: 57.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 4000
Info:
  Memory: total: 20 GiB available: 19.37 GiB used: 2.47 GiB (12.7%)
  Processes: 246 Power: uptime: 13m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep
    wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform Init: systemd v: 256 default: graphical
  Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 1106 Compilers: N/A Shell: Zsh v: 5.9
    default: Bash v: 5.2.37 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.36
    ~ 
2

That’s strange. But I know that if you manually restore an old snapshot after booting, old grub.cfg (old Grub boot menu) will also be automatically restored because it is inside the restored snapshot. → That means any boot entries newer than the restored boot entry are missing in the boot menu after the restoration, this is a known limit of grub-btrfs.
But that’s not the case for you, is it?

I think your Grub EFI file might be outdated in your ESP. Try to run efibootmgr to see the output.
update-grub does not help you as it does not update Grub EFI.

1 Like
3

This is the strangest thing I ever seen, it is a computer, and software, it is either there on not. There is no ligic for being that random.

I never restored anything. It was a fresh install from a fresh download.

Outdated?! I doubt! As I said, it was a fresh install from a freshly downloaded ISO, and I did all after updating the system after installing and rebooting!

Since yesterday when I downloaded I reinstalled like 4 times. even last time I said I will do nothing more than Snapper, its GUI and snaper-pac.

Still no luck.

Anyway, this is the 5th installation, but I decided to forget about snapshots. I will just stay on the exact default installation.

Maybe it is not really serious to have snapshots to boot to. I don’t think it is a must have. I am on Manjaro Stable, Minimal ISO, and I just use it for the very normal home use, browsing, listening to music, watching a movie perhaps, LibreOffice spreadsheets and documents and that’s all. (playing a little with python), and don;t even have any games.

I think Manjaro is stable enough and it won’t break.

So, it is OK, I just hope users who are using snapshots can tell us how is it going with them. Just to learn.

Thank you @zesko for your feedback.

4

Hi,

I gave up on GRUB after experiencing an issue where it wouldn’t remember my last selection. That problem was resolved by switching to Limine.
I now use the Limine bootloader with multiple boots and BTRFS snapshot booting because it’s simple and works more reliable than GRUB. So far, I haven’t had any problems with it.

I’m not sure why Manjaro still relies on GRUB, given the many issues users have with it. But I suppose that’s just the way Manjaro does things.

1 Like
5

Thanks @Newgate
I never new there is even this boot loader. I will look at it.

1 Like
6

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