Stall on booting...

[bag]

OK folks, so I've just upgraded to 9.04. And I'm having problems...

I had previously had problems with kernel upgrades in 8.10 so I'd over-ridden grub and set an old kernel as the default. This works fine and boots with no problems.

However, now when I try to boot the standard kernel that comes with 9.04 (2.6.28-11-generic), it stalls every time. Same place... on recognition/setting up a 3.5" internal card reader/usb/firewire connector.

This internal box is a wonder of a gadget and it works great in my current kernel version (2.6.27-7-generic) - I even used it tonight to download photos from a CF card.

However, when booting into the new standard kernel for 9.04, it halts and fails every time (I say every time but I have only really tried it ten or twelve times... but it's consistent anyway, and I'm not going to try it 100 times to see if it works once!)

Boot halts at following code:

[10.517652] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
[10.517742] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached SCSI generic sg6 type0
[10.518644] sd 7:0:0:1: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
[10.518738] sd 7:0:0:1: Attached SCSI generic sg7 type0
[10.519648] sd 7:0:0:2: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
[10.519741] sd 7:0:0:2: Attached SCSI generic sg8 type0
[10.520648] sd 7:0:0:3: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
[10.520739] sd 7:0:0:3: Attached SCSI generic sg9 type0

And that's as good as it gets...

Have to say that Jaunty looks good under the old kernel but I really want to see how it goes with its own... In particular I want to see if my webcam will come back to life now - it stopped being recognised when I moved to 8.10...

Anyway, who can tell me what's up here, and why would it work under one kernel and not the next...?

I had read in my Linux mag that (K)Ubuntu was well known for maintaining hardware compatibility going forward... This would now be two consecutive times that I've updated the kernel and seen fairly bog-standard hardware that was working fine previously get borked on upgrade...

Any help I can get would be much appreciated. Any pointers from people wiser and more experienced than myself?

Thanks in advance.

Bag.

[vinnywright]

Re: Stall on booting...

just to see make shure.......check to see if you have the kernel,initrd,system map,and config for the kernel you want in /boot and the system links in / point to it. and the modules for it in /lib/modules

if not it's not going to boot. ........ at least the modules and kernel and initrd eneyway

VINNY

[bag]

Re: Stall on booting...

Vinny,

Thanks for the response. Yes, I've checked them all - all there.

Any other ideas or areas where I can look?

Thanks in advance,

bag

[bag]

Re: Stall on booting...

Bump.

Big bump.

Been away for a while but now that I'm back I need to get this sorted out. Can anyone help me and solve this issue?

I really would like to be able to use the latest available kernel and have it boot right through to a working desktop.

To recap on the problem - it stalls on boot, when attempting to view/mount/install a simple internal SD/CF/other 9-in-one card reader that I have. This card reader works fine in 2.6.27-7-generic but not in the latest kernel (2.6.28-11-generic).

Any help you can get me would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

Bag.

[kevinc]

Re: Stall on booting...

Try lspci to list more details about your internal card reader. Eg, Manufacture, model, etcetera.

Strange that the older kernel has a driver that works fine with this, but the newer kernel does not.
I wonder if the driver for your card reader is black listed?

Are you booting with a card inside the card reader? If so, try booting without a card inside the reader.

Check you log files after failed boot with the current kernel to see what clues are contained there.

[bag]

Re: Stall on booting...

kevinc,

Many thanks for your reply. Right then, running lspci returns:

~$ lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP65 Memory Controller (rev a3)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP65 SMBus (rev a1)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP65 Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP65 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP65 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP65 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP65 IDE (rev a1)
00:0a.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP65 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation Device 045b (rev a1)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI Express bridge (rev a1)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI Express bridge (rev a1)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP65 PCI Express bridge (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:0a.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 61)
01:0a.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 61)
01:0a.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 63)
01:0a.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller (rev 46)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GS] (rev a1)

Can't see it there. However, then it occurred to me that it was probably a USB device since it connects to the m/board via a USB pinset internally on the board. So running lsusb gives out:

~$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 03f0:2f11 Hewlett-Packard PSC 1200
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:0928 Logitech, Inc. Quickcam Express
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 058f:6362 Alcor Micro Corp. Hi-Speed 21-in-1 Flash Card Reader/Writer (Internal/External)
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0930:0b09 Toshiba Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

And there it is - it would be the Alcor Micro Corp flash card reader/writer.

I wasn't booting with a card in the slot - so presume that that's not the issue with the newer kernel.

Apologies but in terms of log files, I'm not clued in... I can run dmesg but it only shows the current boot... And in the current boot (of the older kernel, where it works/boots) it shows the following:

[  10.328758] sde: sde1                                                           
[  10.330987] sd 7:0:0:1: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
[  10.331095] sd 7:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0
[  10.332327] sd 7:0:0:2: [sdf] Attached SCSI removable disk
[  10.332439] sd 7:0:0:2: Attached scsi generic sg7 type 0
[  10.333375] sd 7:0:0:3: [sdg] Attached SCSI removable disk
[  10.333484] sd 7:0:0:3: Attached scsi generic sg8 type 0

Please post how to check out previous boots so that I can post up data on the ones that didn't work...

Thanks for your help.

Bag.

[kevinc]

Re: Stall on booting...

To check log files there are at least two ways.

1. Kmenu > Applications > System > System Logs Viewer then choose Systems | Kernel | Authentication | Daemons

2. /var/log will list all log files - the older ones will be archived with .gz but you can open then with gunzip or tar

I found this bug listed for Alcor Mirco Corp card reader: https://launchpad.net/bugs/366478

It worked in Intrepid but not in Jaunty

[bag]

Re: Stall on booting...

kevinc

Thanks for that. OK, so I've had a look - but can't seem to find the log of the failed boots. Can anyone confirm if the system logs data from failed boots? Or does it not get logged if the kernel doesn't boot through to stability? I have to switch off the PC and do a hard reboot (or Ctrl-Alt-Del) to reboot - what happens to log data at this point?

The bug would appear to be a very similar card reader - so may be relevant. However, the others seem to be able to boot at least, and get into their systems whereupon the reader doesn't work. I can't even boot - it just stalls when detecting...

I can try and disable the card reader later tonight - and then see if I can boot into the latest kernel.

Will try that tonight when home from work. Will post how I get on.

It may well be that I just need to wait for a fix to be posted in the kernel. Thanks for now.

Bag.