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

D1screet · 2015-10-15 01:12:43

Kk, I'll give that a go with a live boot.

D1screet · 2015-10-15 02:12:04

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Momentus 5400.6
Device Model:     ST9320325AS
Serial Number:    5VERH6RN
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0492eeebe
Firmware Version: 0003SDM1
User Capacity:    320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is:    Wed Oct 14 22:09:04 2015 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

user@debian:~$ sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda
smartctl 6.4 2014-10-07 r4002 [i686-linux-3.16.0-4-686-pae] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

So here's what I get. I suppose the hard drive should be in good shape according to the SMART status.

tknomanzr · 2015-10-15 05:23:29

Ok. If you can get a live image to boot, I would boot it and try reformatting that swap partition. You shouldn't need to re-partition it, just format it in gparted. See if that will fix it. It seems like, somewhere in the back of my mind, I have run into that before. I don't always format a home partition when doing a clean install but swap has to always be formatted.

ohnonot · 2015-10-15 06:04:12

am i correct that your problems / boot failure error messages have changed since reinstall?
can't rule out hardware failure.

your last video is exceptionally weird, looks like a kernel panic but then it snaps out of it again...

anyway, this one's for sure:

D1screet wrote:

output of sudo fdisk -l

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

swap in an extended partition?
something's off here.

i think temetka is on the right track.

i would try to disable swap first, see if that helps (just for troubleshooting purposes).
(but why would it happen only when on battery?)

my next question would've been if you have a ssd in there, but no, it's a spinning hard drive.

nobody0 · 2015-10-15 06:39:53

Grub cannot mount your swap partition. If you want swap, then create another partition and make it swap. Delete the one you have now. Re install BL.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-10-15 07:02:06

ostrolek wrote:

Grub cannot mount your swap partition. If you want swap, then create another partition and make it swap. Delete the one you have now. Re install BL.

It's not a GRUB message, it's from systemd -- GRUB works fine.

No need to create & delete partitions.

You can simply remove the swap line from /etc/fstab and let systemd mount the partition automatically. [1]

I don't use an /etc/fstab any more, it's a PITA.

[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/software/sys … rator.html

@OP: Your YouTube video shows a stack trace from a failing program before it runs into "Start Job for..."

nobody0 · 2015-10-15 07:47:16

You are right. Its Systemd not being able to mount the swap partition.

D1screet · 2015-10-15 16:12:15

So I deleted the swap line from /etc/fstab, but I'm still a little lost on how to use the systemd-gpt-auto-generator. Could someone give me the rundown; I've read the page that was linked, but when I try to find the file that it references as a synopsis, it doesn't exist? Which leads me to believe that I need to write/install something extra to make it work. Thanks for all the help so far guys.

damo · 2015-10-15 16:37:17

D1screet wrote:

So I deleted the swap line from /etc/fstab, but I'm still a little lost on how to use the systemd-gpt-auto-generator. Could someone give me the rundown; I've read the page that was linked, but when I try to find the file that it references as a synopsis, it doesn't exist? Which leads me to believe that I need to write/install something extra to make it work. Thanks for all the help so far guys.

Aren't you just complicating things ATM? Why not use gparted from a Live session and create a swap partition, then get its UUID and set that in the fstab?

If you don't mind reinstalling, then this time make sure you create a separate swap partition, and not one in the extended partition. A swap can be shared between distro installations BTW.

D1screet · 2015-10-15 17:24:04

damo wrote:

-snip-
Aren't you just complicating things ATM? Why not use gparted from a Live session and create a swap partition, then get its UUID and set that in the fstab?
If you don't mind reinstalling, then this time make sure you create a separate swap partition, and not one in the extended partition. A swap can be shared between distro installations BTW.

I can give that a whirl. Are there any particular settings that I should take note when making the swap partition, such as filesystem type? Anything that I need to put in it?

I didn't really intend to make the swap partition in an extended partition, it's just what the BL installer seemed to do if I used the guided partition tool during install to just use the entire disk, don't know what it does that automatically.

damo · 2015-10-15 17:50:06

I can give that a whirl. Are there any particular settings that I should take note when making the swap partition, such as filesystem type? Anything that I need to put in it?

The swap partition is of type "swap", so that will be sorted automatically.

I didn't really intend to make the swap partition in an extended partition, it's just what the BL installer seemed to do if I used the guided partition tool during install to just use the entire disk, don't know what it does that automatically.

I think this needs further investigation.

Bearded_Blunder · 2015-10-15 19:23:17

@ damo If you use guided whole disk partitioning in the installer, on an MBR disk, you get one primary part, and everything else is logical in an extended part (swap included), this is what the debian installer does, be it the bl variant, standard netinst one, or the old Wheezy one as adapted for #!

If that scheme causes issues, a debian bug needs raising, it ought not to cause any though, in the past I've multi-booted with DOS, W98, W2K, all in primaries, and Linux entirely in logicals in an extended, there was never any problem under the old init, if there's one under systemd, then systemd is broken.

I too have had issues with how swap behaves and is handled by systemd and might add I'm unimpressed, seems to me that debian made an error in picking it as default init, what they had wasn't broke, we have here an example of what happens when people "fix" things that aren't broke...

Last edited by Bearded_Blunder (2015-10-15 19:27:29)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-10-15 19:44:46

D1screet wrote:

So I deleted the swap line from /etc/fstab, but I'm still a little lost on how to use the systemd-gpt-auto-generator. Could someone give me the rundown; I've read the page that was linked, but when I try to find the file that it references as a synopsis, it doesn't exist? Which leads me to believe that I need to write/install something extra to make it work. Thanks for all the help so far guys.

Sorry, the auto-generator only works with GPT disks and your's has a traditional MBR partition table.

My mistake :8

D1screet · 2015-10-15 19:51:09

So, here's an update on what I've tried:

1.) Fresh install, used guided partitioning, finished installation.
2.) Booted straight back into the live-ISO, used GParted to delete both the logical and extended partitions and place a primary partition of the linux-swap type in place.
3.) Edited the /etc/fstab file on my hard drive to match UUIDs of the partitions.
4.) Shutdown, then booted up into the hard drive.
5.) Successful boot, logged in, went through the first-time startup process (updates, extras, etc.)
6.) Shutdown, then tried booting it back up.
7.) Keeps getting stuck around the same dialogue of:

A start job is running for...

8.) Can't seem to get the netbook to boot properly into BL anymore.

So either the first boot was a fluke and I need to end up configuring something else, or something about going through the update process is breaking it (although it shouldn't )

I'm open to any suggestions on what fix to try next.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-10-15 19:58:02

D1screet wrote:

7.) Keeps getting stuck around the same dialogue of:
A start job is running for...

A start job is running for *what*?

Bearded_Blunder · 2015-10-15 20:02:07

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

D1screet wrote:
7.) Keeps getting stuck around the same dialogue of:
A start job is running for...
A start job is running for *what*?

He's not going to be able to answer that unless you tell him how to provide you with more information than is displayed on the screen.. the OP is reporting what he sees, it's not *his* fault that systemd is uninformative.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-10-15 20:02:54

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

He's not going to be able to answer that unless you tell him how to provide you with more information than is displayed on the screen.. the OP is reporting what he sees, it's not *his* fault that systemd is uninformative.

Use a camera and post a thumbnail link, perhaps?

EDIT: https://wiki.freedesktop.org/www/Softwa … Debugging/
All techniques can be performed from the chroot environment.

Trust me, systemd is *very* informative if you ask it to be...

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-10-15 20:04:55)

Bearded_Blunder · 2015-10-15 20:17:12

And show you a picture of "A start job is running for... [flashing red stars]" have you actually watched a low power system start up that pauses at those? It's all they say, he's providing you all the information that's on screen, now if you can provide him with some boot parameter to make it more verbose, so it actually (for instance) says what start job for what....

Far be it from me to repeat my opinion that systemd is "opaque", but watching a system start is comparatively uninformative compared to the predecessor...

damo · 2015-10-15 20:19:12

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

@ damo If you use guided whole disk partitioning in the installer, on an MBR disk, you get one primary part, and everything else is logical in an extended part (swap included), this is what the debian installer does, be it the bl variant, standard netinst one, or the old Wheezy one as adapted for #!...snipped..

Well I never knew that 8o

I've never used guided partitioning - it's always been a multiboot setup.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-10-15 20:24:43

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

And show you a picture of "A start job is running for... [flashing red stars]"

That's not all they say -- the OP's screenshots earlier in the thread show (an ellipsised version of) which service is attempting to run.

All I want to know is what the full message is.

To boot with more verbose parameters, the OP can refer to the page I have linked above.

To pause the boot messages as they display press <Ctrl>+s, to resume press <Ctrl>+q

#21 2015-10-15 01:12:43

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

#22 2015-10-15 02:12:04

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

#23 2015-10-15 05:23:29

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

#24 2015-10-15 06:04:12

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

#25 2015-10-15 06:39:53

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

#26 2015-10-15 07:02:06

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

#27 2015-10-15 07:47:16

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

#28 2015-10-15 16:12:15

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

#29 2015-10-15 16:37:17

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

#30 2015-10-15 17:24:04

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

#31 2015-10-15 17:50:06

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

#32 2015-10-15 19:23:17

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

#33 2015-10-15 19:44:46

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

#34 2015-10-15 19:51:09

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

#35 2015-10-15 19:58:02

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

#36 2015-10-15 20:02:07

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

#37 2015-10-15 20:02:54

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

#38 2015-10-15 20:17:12

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

#39 2015-10-15 20:19:12

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

#40 2015-10-15 20:24:43

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

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