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#1 2015-10-14 01:30:08

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

[Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

Hello,

I am running the latest version of bunsenlabs on my ASUS eeePC 1015CX (I know that the N2600 chip on this isn't very well supported by linux in general).

Installing and updating after installing seems to go by pretty well, however; it seems to absolutely refuse to boot if the netbook is not plugged in, and is let to run off the battery only. It seems to always hang on "A start job is running for Remount Root and Kernel F..." and won't progress further.

It was able to boot once, but then the mouse/keyboard wouldn't work on the login screen.

If I just forcibly shut it down and then boot with the netbook plugged in, everything works just fine.

Any help on what this means? Thanks.

Last edited by D1screet (2015-10-16 06:49:18)

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#2 2015-10-14 04:43:58

dolly
Miss Mixunderstand
From: /lab701
Registered: 2015-10-03
Posts: 490

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

The first thing I would check is if it is a hardware problem. The battery itself, or something with it's connectivity. If not how does it work with another OS? If it is a software problem I do not have a clue of what it could be. smile

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#3 2015-10-14 06:53:19

ohnonot
...again
Registered: 2015-09-29
Posts: 5,592

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

hmmm.
just thinking out loud here...
if it says "a start job is running", that means that is one of the init systems issuing the message, which in turn would suggested the kernel isalready loaded.
but why on remount...
we need more info in any case. either make a photo of the screen when it hangs, or boot with power cord pugged in, and try to find the relevant bit in the logs.
i'm not sure if it's systemd issuing that message, but we have to find out what it's doing at that point.

what happens when you plug the power cord in after it starts hanging?

also see here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Eee_PC

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#4 2015-10-14 06:53:45

Head_on_a_Stick
Member
From: London
Registered: 2015-09-29
Posts: 9,093
Website

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

Does the live ISO image boot and work with the laptop unplugged?

If you boot with it plugged in and then unplug it, does it stay on?

EDIT: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-10-14 06:58:46)

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#5 2015-10-14 07:42:17

nobody0
Disabled account
Registered: 2015-09-29
Posts: 664

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

Check your

/etc/fstab

against the results of

sudo blkid

to see whether the UUIDs are the same. If not, correct the fstab. This is a grub problem--systemd is trying to start a job, but goes on a loop--if it persists re-install BL.

Last edited by nobody0 (2015-10-14 07:43:51)

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#6 2015-10-14 08:16:58

dolly
Miss Mixunderstand
From: /lab701
Registered: 2015-10-03
Posts: 490

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

Oooops sorry, seems that I misuderstood the whole problem :8 Can I blame the early hour I read it?  hmm

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#7 2015-10-14 12:27:26

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

Thanks for all the replies guys, I really appreciate the help. I'll be looking into all of your suggestions today and coming back with some (hopefully positive) results and pictures.

So here is what I know already:

I defaulted back to Lubuntu 15.04 for now, and it seems to handle booting both with and without a power cord just fine, so I don't quite think it's particularly a hardware issue where the battery isn't connected well or is dead.

I haven't tried trying to connect the power cord after it hangs on boot, but I have tried removing the power cord AFTER booting and it works... until the next time I try to boot it, it hangs again, regardless of whether it's plugged in or not. But after that first hang, subsequent boots while plugged in seem to work just fine.

Oh, and don't worry about misunderstanding the whole problem, I appreciate the help regardless.

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#8 2015-10-14 21:16:09

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

So here's an update on what I've found:

Booting off of a live image on my USB proved to work just fine without having to plug in my netbook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MIYoZJKhuI

I then installed bl onto the netbook and opened up /etc/fstab and here is what I found:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=bba4e38e-7ed6-4e11-8ec4-7f421d7eae12 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=b0981dc3-abe8-40ad-a861-7b7b6396842e none            swap    sw              0       0

This was also the output on sudo blkid:

/dev/sda5: UUID="b0981dc3-abe8-40ad-a861-7b7b6396842e" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="fa6e7ee3-05"
/dev/sda1: UUID="bba4e38e-7ed6-4e11-8ec4-7f421d7eae12" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="fa6e7ee3-01"

Not quite sure what this means, since the UUIDs seem to match up.

Second, when I tried to record a boot sequence WHILE plugged in, I came across this behavior, which was pretty much close to if not the exact same behavior as the unplugged netbook refusing to boot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFhaxK6wlHA

This time I actually did notice that it was saying something in particular about the UUID b0981, but still not sure what it means at the moment. It kinda hung like this for a while, and I let it keep going until it finally resumed the rest of the sequence (not shown in video) and landed on the login page... only for the keyboard and mouse to not function.

Any ideas? Thanks a bunch for the help!

EDIT: bit of formatting

Last edited by D1screet (2015-10-14 21:16:42)

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#9 2015-10-14 23:10:28

hhh
Gaucho
From: High in the Custerdome
Registered: 2015-09-17
Posts: 16,138
Website

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

It timed out before I could see what happened (1 min. 1 sec., what happens after 1:30?) I haven't seen the call trace, but the cron job of a minute and a half is probably the network failing. You're using the default network-manager/nm-applet setup?


I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

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#10 2015-10-14 23:17:30

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

I'd assume that I'm currently using the default network-manager/nm-applet setup; there wasn't anything that I had changed about the setup after the fresh install other than going through the update scripts.

Sometimes, when it reaches 1:30, it'll spit out something about timing out and then loop right back to the same spot; other times, it'll sort of continue the regular boot sequence but won't allow me to use the mouse/keyboard at the login screen.

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#11 2015-10-14 23:22:11

damo
....moderator....
Registered: 2015-08-20
Posts: 6,734

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

I've seen that error when installing to a new partition and setting up a new swap partition. If I boot back into the original one, there will be a mismatch with the swap UUIDs in fstab, but it carries on booting up after the 1m30s.

I get the swap UUID and make sure fstab in each partition has the same value.

What do you have in the other partitions, and were any used for grub-install && update-grub?


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#12 2015-10-14 23:25:38

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

There shouldn't be anything in the other partitions, let alone BE other partitions that I could think of. I usually select the option in the installer to have all the /tmp /var /home all in the same partition, as well as selecting the hard drive to install the grub bootloader. Could it be that I messed up the installation process?

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#13 2015-10-14 23:40:23

damo
....moderator....
Registered: 2015-08-20
Posts: 6,734

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

What is the output of

sudo fdisk -l

Be Excellent to Each Other...
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FORUM RULES and posting guidelines «» Help page for forum post formatting
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#14 2015-10-15 00:18:43

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

One of the times that I attempted to boot I came across this:

14dm69i.jpg

As for the output of sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 298.1 GiB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xfa6e7ee3

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048 616804351 616802304 294.1G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       616806398 625141759   8335362     4G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       616806400 625141759   8335360     4G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

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#15 2015-10-15 00:26:37

hhh
Gaucho
From: High in the Custerdome
Registered: 2015-09-17
Posts: 16,138
Website

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

That sounds like this old bug, but it's marked fixed in jessie...
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=754218


I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

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#16 2015-10-15 00:28:04

hhh
Gaucho
From: High in the Custerdome
Registered: 2015-09-17
Posts: 16,138
Website

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

What do have in /etc/network/interfaces?


I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

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#17 2015-10-15 00:31:36

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

hhh wrote:

What do have in /etc/network/interfaces?

It has:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

I opened up interfaces.d/* to see what the the file is sourcing but it's just an empty file.

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#18 2015-10-15 00:32:06

tknomanzr
BL Die Hard
From: Around the Bend
Registered: 2015-09-29
Posts: 1,057

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

It looks like it is failing to mount swap for some reason. Are you sure that disk is good?

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#19 2015-10-15 00:41:00

D1screet
Member
Registered: 2015-10-14
Posts: 19

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

tknomanzr wrote:

It looks like it is failing to mount swap for some reason. Are you sure that disk is good?

There is a possibility that the drive could be failing; Shall I run some diagnostics using disk tools from other linux distros?

EDIT: There really hasn't been any strange behavior with the netbook and the disk in general; just didn't want to rule out this possibility though.

Last edited by D1screet (2015-10-15 01:12:00)

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#20 2015-10-15 01:11:44

tknomanzr
BL Die Hard
From: Around the Bend
Registered: 2015-09-29
Posts: 1,057

Re: [Solved] Can't boot without being plugged in.

I would attempt to rule that out first, for sure. Linux can be very picky about failing drives. If you have enough ram you could attempt to turn swap off and see if you can boot. Another thing, if for some reason you did not format your swap partition when you created it (I am not sure if the debian installer will allow this. I do know it will complain.), it could be creating problems. You could try to run gparted from your Live Boot and attempt to reformat it. Gparted will often notify you if your SMART status is indicating a failing drive as well.

Here's some info that might help you with diagnosis:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/monitor- … lth-linux/

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