SB36 boots to a blank screen unless any usb drive is plugged in

[Windows-Guy]

I have a core i7 laptop with a broken screen that ive taken off and ive plugged it into an hdmi monitor. When i first installed sb36, it rebooted to a black screen after the install. I finally got it to boot to hdmi and updated it and then it would reboot/start to hdmi every time until today when i got an update. I started to think its booting to my non existent laptop screen except that when i hit the power button it turns off instantly instead of waiting 60 seconds. If i tap f9 at boot and pick what it was going to boot to anyway, it boots w hdmi working. I thought maybe it was wayland but im logging in under xorg. No idea whats going on but i love silverblue and ive spent a lot of time setting this up for what i need. If i cant just turn it on or reboot im going to have to go back to mint, it just works. I dont have this issue with windows 10, mint20,21, rescuezilla, backbox, rhel8, sb32, tails, uefi bios… so its not my machine

[Windows-Guy]

Ps ive had the same issue intermittently w rhel9, fedora36, silverblue34,35,36 so im thinking its wayland, or a timing issue like its looking for something before it had time to initialize, idk but whatever it is its core to fedora and redhat and didnt exist in silverblue32

[Windows-Guy]

Intel hd5500

[travier]

If you can reproduce this issue with Fedora Workstation 36 then I would suggest opening a bug in Bugzilla with as much details as possible. Thanks

[Windows-Guy]

I did a bit more digging on sb36 today. I have a sept 13 backup that i restored to and it turns out that the problem was not in the update after that. The problem seems to be if i do not have my usb flash drive plugged in sb boots to a blank screen and the power button turns the machine off instantly no matter how long i wait. If i have the usb unplugged and i press f9 for the boot menu and hit enter for item 1(sb) it boots. There is no way grub is on my flash drive. Its been wiped w ventoy and some iso’s. So its kind of a security feature:) noone can boot my machine without my flash drive. Its a goofy issue. Ill try an earlier backup and report back

[Windows-Guy]

By backup above, i mean whole drive, part table, grub, partitions, everything

[Windows-Guy]

My best guess so far is that by having 2 bootable uefi sources or pressing the key to pick what to boot, slows down the boot process enough for the hdmi to go live before its picked up

[Windows-Guy]

Ok i went all the way back to my base install plus virt-manager etc no vm dated 9-5 and it boots fine with any of 4 usb flash drives plugged in and it doesnt boot if theyre not plugged in. All of are uefi bootable. Ill format one brb. Humm the plot thickens… i nuked one and put a big blank ntfs partition on it and sb boots with it in and doesnt with it out. Booting is fundemental :) you got any guesses?

[Windows-Guy]

That base image is just a fresh install of sb 36 with all the stuff from stephens tech talks youtube video added (i skipped the fonts, extensions and ssl, i just wanted to run kvm) and i updated that rebooted and burnt it. It pretty close to stock

[Windows-Guy]

It does seem to hang a bit when it does boot with a usb flash plugged in, then the lighted keyboard blinks off on twice and it boots. Also i have used standard ext4 partitions with one for boot/efi, boot, /, swap (wasnt sure why i needed both boots but it seemed to work that way) i think i did an auto and tried to copy that

[Windows-Guy]

I restored a mint 21 image i had from august and i cant get it to not boot. I noticed its logo is on its own screen after the hp logo whereas fedoras is animated and on the hp screen. Not sure that matters but who knows. It may be my manual partitioning. Maybe var needs its own partition off root. I really like that youve got selinux, immutable core, and basically rolling modern automatic updates forever. I thought i was done:) now ive gotta update mint and sb until i decide… but one things for sure, im not a windows guy anymore :)

[travier]

This seems like a firmware, bootloader or kernel issue. If you can reproduce it with a classic Fedora Workstation installation and report it in Bugzilla that would be great.

[Windows-Guy]

Oh… alright :)

this will take a while

[Windows-Guy]

The flash drive i wiped out was fedora 36 lol. when i get this up ill be installing it w manual ext4 partitions boot/efi, /, and swap to keep w what ive done on sb36

the computer is an Hp spectre c360 13-4005dx With intel hd graphics 5500 And a removed built in touch screen

[Windows-Guy]

Ok first off the installer does the same thing at launch Black screen, power off is instant

i have pressed f9 to choose this flash drive to boot to so that trick isnt working

i think im dead in the water here I cant install it

[Windows-Guy]

I wiped out the partitions for my previous install thinking that might change things

it did not I cant boot to the install iso

i know nothing about bugzilla Feel free to send all this over there if you want

i gotta get a working computer going so i can send out some invoices

[Windows-Guy]

Ive got it installing I just turned it off on several times And it came up once Media tested out fine

[Windows-Guy]

Finished install Shutdown Pulled out flash drive And it booted

[Windows-Guy]

This just popped up Xorg-x11-drv-intel Sytem failure Crash function Intel_enable_ddi

[Windows-Guy]

Bugzilla report: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2127485

[Windows-Guy]

Oh btw fastboot was disabled in my bios When it would only boot w a usb plugged in Or by selecting it in boot devices

w fastboot on, it doesnt boot no matter what

Thanks for working with me to nail this down.

Even though ive moved back to mint21 for now, Im really impressed with this process and ill be Back when booting isnt an issue.

On mint id submit this to the forum and me And some other guy would have the same Problem, then the thread would slowly change Into a contest of unrelated cool things other guys have done with sudo :)

[Windows-Guy]

Just to keep you up to date with what im posting on bugzilla:

Ive also tried rebasing my fedora silverblue to 37 (which must be beta) and that does not fix the issue. Ill try rawhide when i get some time. Ill try things for you if you want. Im pretty sure its related to my specific hardware.

rebasing to rawhide today does not fix the fact that i struggle to get silverblue and fedora to boot whatever it is, its in both only solution i have now is to choose bios boot options and pick fedora (which is the only bootable option i have) then it boots (which is what its trying to do when it doesnt boot) may be a timing issue with trying to talk to my hdmi monitor before it switches on ... idk

I really want to use SilverBlue :) I spend an hour a day nuking mint, restoring sb and doing whatever i thought of last night (like rebasing it to rawhide), it doesnt boot, and i restore the mint

I want a fresh Kernel. Give me the freshest Kernel in the house! With a side of SELinux and SVirt on an immutable base:)

[travier]

Note that when you test things here, the bootloader does not get updated in Silverblue when you rebase from one version to the other. You either have to do it manually by syncing the content of /usr/lib/ostree-boot/ to you EFI partition or do a full re-install with a fresh ISO.

[Windows-Guy]

Thx. Ive only been using linux since may.

how do i go about syncing the content of /usr/lib/ostree-boot/ to you EFI partition

what rebases should i try along with the above Im not quite sure where testing sits My guess is its between 37 beta and rawhide

[travier]

This is similar to https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/355. We'll have to write docs for that.

[Windows-Guy]

Ive also got what appears to be 2 duplicate entries in grub for a total of 4. Ive never touched it. Ive also not let dbx update because it makes my ventoy usb un bootable. That may be a sign that ventoy is up to no good, but at this point its too late. Ive used it for everything. Is there any chance this will all be fixed in 37?

[travier]

Duplicated boot entries is https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/120

[p-fruck]

Seems to related to multiple devices in the HP x360 lineup. I am owning an HP EliteBook x360 1030 G3 with Intel® UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) graphics and facing the following issues: I have the device attached to a USB C display which I use to power on the laptop. If the laptop is closed I am experiencing the same black screen issue. If the laptop is opened, it boots just fine regardless whether it is attached to the USB C display. FB enabled.

[kuba3351]

I switched from Dell Latitude 5400 to Lenovo ThinkPad L15 Gen 1, and didn't experienced this issue on Dell, but it exist on Lenovo. I have a workaround for this, when system boots to black screen, I open the lid of the laptop and the screens sometimes initializes properly, but it will be nice if someone can provide a resolution.

[travier]

This looks like an hardware, firmware, or kernel issue. Please file an issue in Fedora's Bugzilla so that kernel folks are aware of it. This tracker is only for Silverblue specific issues.

[Windows-Guy]

Fedora 37 fixed all this