[Testing - Trixie] [Solved] Kernel 6.11.7 and 6.11.9 Intermittent hang

[mathiraj]

Kernel 6.11.7 and 6.11.9 hangs intermittently while booting
Console displays the following message

[ 4.263746] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 4.263748] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

i have to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot. Most of the time the reboot, boots fine and doesn't hang.
Anyone else faced this?

[maloosheck]

Out of curiosity have you tried hitting Enter? Do you see the blinking cursor at the end of the line?

[mathiraj]

Actually it booted fine if i press enter.
I thought i was hanging and always did Ctrl-Alt-Del

Now my problem is i have a tablet pc that runs Debian testing. It doesn't have a physical keyboard. I use the on screen keyboard. So, i can't press enter when the kernel pauses with this message.

[mathiraj]

this is becoming an issue on systems without physical keyboard. any suggestions/solutions?

[TiberiusKG]

Do you have any physical side buttons except the power button on the edges of your tablet? If yes, it may be worth trying to press them. On my laptop, I can press any key except the power key to get past that occasional halt.

[mathiraj]

@TiberiusKG . thank you. pressing the volume button did the trick

[kvdberg]

I have the same issue of intermittent hangs with Debian kernel 6.11.10 and Trixie, and yes, hitting Enter helps. Vanilla kernels (6.11, 6.12) always boot without this intervention so far, but sometimes slower than for instance with Bullseye.

[update] Well, today I had to hit Enter booting a vanilla kernel (6.12) with Trixie, so I guess it's got nothing to do with Debian kernels.[/update]

[mathiraj]

it is weird, why the kernel would stop and expect a keystroke to continue, though...

[kvdberg]

It is. Maybe some kind of debug routine that runs randomly at boot time or after a set number of boots?

[Aki]

Hello,

it is weird, why the kernel would stop and expect a keystroke to continue, though...

It is not probably the kernel, but some script running after the kernel is started during boot.

You can add the "debug" option in the grub configuration to gather more informations in the journal log; i.e. in /etc/default/grub:

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="debug"

Then, update the initramfs:

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sudo update-grub

Hope this helps.

[kvdberg]

According to this thread this behavior is also seen on sid and it's suggested there it might be related to an update of systemd (256.7-3 to 257~rc2-3). My systemd is at 257~rc3-1 and apparently the issue persists. I guess it will be ironed out in due time.

[TiberiusKG]

Since I suspect that the lines that follow after pressing a key (shown in cyan) are more relevant than the last line visible when halting, here they are, in the hope that they will be helpful for the people that can do something about it:

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[    4.585293] systemd-sysv-generator[497]: SysV service '/etc/init.d/preload' lacks a native systemd unit file, automatically generating a unit file for compatibility.
[    4.585302] systemd-sysv-generator[497]: Please update package to include a native systemd unit file.
[    4.585306] systemd-sysv-generator[497]: ! This compatibility logic is deprecated, expect removal soon. !

[kvdberg]

This bug has caught the attention of the systemd maintainers, see https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/35499

[kvdberg]

Now, with systemd at 257.1-4, the issue seems fixed.