Unknown GRUB boot issue (starts GRUB shell first)

[Armakuni]

I discovered an issue on my son’s laptop. I’m uncertain about the cause, that’s why I’m posting this.

On boot, GRUB directly goes to an GRUB shell. The GRUB version is printed and a normal prompt. There is nothing labelled RESCUE SHELL or similar. I can enter exit here and immediately get the normal GRUB menu, where I can start Manjaro without any further problems.

This happens on every boot, and I don’t know why. I have Manjaro installed on this machine since a while (up to two years, I think). I made all updates until now, but this “issue” still remains.

I would like to know what can cause this or how I can correct this. Since I can enter exit there and a normal boot is possible, this is not a high priority, but I want to understand what went wrong.

[Aragorn]

• Is this a BIOS/MBR installation or a UEFI/GPT installation?
• Have you tried reinstalling GRUB with grub-install?
• Also, please post the contents of /etc/default/grub.

[Olli]

does it come out of nowhere or had there been some possible reasons for this behaviour i.e. it happened after a update or after changing some settings or similar ?
is it a multi-boot system with different operating systems ?

p.s.: please also post the mandatory output of

inxi --admin --verbosity=7 --filter --no-host --width

that shows a lot of helpful informations to others that are needed (kernel, distro, kernel-parameters etc.)

[Armakuni]

• Is this a BIOS/MBR installation or a UEFI/GPT installation?
• Have you tried reinstalling GRUB with grub-install?

It is a UEFI/GPT installation. Reinstalling GRUB with this command had no effect.

As soon as I get to this computer soon, I can provide further information. Actually I have only this available:

maxi -kmsgeif

Currently running: 5.15.125-1-MANJARO (linux515)
 linux515 vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64∑dabe~be6f initramfs-5.15-x86_64.img=8,9M fallback=34M∑<sha?>
Modules in: /lib/modules Checksumming all modules may take a while
 modules515 5.15.125-1-MANJARO=120M∑4769~e57b extramodules-5.15-MANJARO=268K∑4b34~905b
Info about: /etc/default/grub
   GRUB_DEFAULT              =saved
   GRUB_TIMEOUT              =5
 # GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE        =hidden
   GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE        =menu
   GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR          ="Manjaro"
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="apparmor=1 security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3"
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX        =""
   GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT          =true
   GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES      ="part_gpt part_msdos"
   GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER    =false
   GRUB_THEME                ="/usr/share/grub/themes/manjaro/theme.txt"
Info about: /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
   MODULES                   =""
   BINARIES                  =()
   FILES                     =""
   HOOKS                     ="base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap consolefont filesystems fsck"
 # COMPRESSION               ="gzip"
 # COMPRESSION               ="bzip2"
 # COMPRESSION               ="lzma"
 # COMPRESSION               ="xz"
 # COMPRESSION               ="lzop"
 # COMPRESSION               ="lz4"
 # COMPRESSION               ="zstd"
Info about: efi bootloaders
 /boot/grub/x86_64-efi/grub.efi 136K ∑e3db~047a
 /boot/grub/x86_64-efi/core.efi 136K ∑43a6~d103
Info about: efi vars (needs efibootmgr)
 Boot0001* ubuntu HD(1,GPT,b87fa53a-788b-4c92-90c7-6ba010488044,0x800,0x200000) \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi) File(.䍒

[Aragorn]

In a terminal, type…

sudo grub-install --recheck
sudo update-grub

[Armakuni]

This is no multi-boot system. I reused a previously created Kubuntu partition. There were so far no problems like this. It did not happen immediately after an update.

[Wollie]

@Armakuni

Reinstalling GRUB with this command had no effect.

What command exactly (full syntax) have you tried? It could be that you still boot into Ubuntu’s grub. In this case you have to reinstall grub from Manjaro.

GRUB/Restore the GRUB Bootloader

[Armakuni]

It could be that you still boot into Ubuntu’s grub. In this case you have to reinstall grub from Manjaro.

I’m sure it was grub-install. I’m unsure if I reinstalled GRUB when I reused the old Kubuntu partition, maybe this would be the cause.

Update: I have to check this as soon as I get to this computer again.

[Wollie]

As described in the wiki, the proper command for a normal UEFI install would have been:

sudo grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=manjaro --recheck

[Armakuni]

I had the possibility to reach the computer. I tried grub-install again, and it created a new boot entry for Manjaro. It seems I missed this step in the past during the installation.

After reboot, I landed again at the GRUB shell. In the UEFI setup tool I found that the boot order wasn’t changed, so I moved “Manjaro” at top.

Rebooting again, and Manjaro GRUB directly started as intended.

It seems I did not remove the old (K)Ubuntu boot entry. Thanks for all your quick help. Again, I did learn some new things