[Bug 1883785] Re: intermittent boot failure dell inspiron 3593

[Johann Gail]

The Inspiron 3593 does not have a dedicated Trusted Platform Module (TPM
2.0), but instead the successor Intel® Platform Trust Technology (Intel®
PTT). Disabling this PTT in BIOS security settings has *NOT* improved
anything.

Workaround #1 does not work for me. 
Entering 'rmmod tpm' leads to 'command failed', like most of other commands too.

For me workaround #2 (unloading tpm module) seems to work. Boot never
failed since the last 2 days and around 20 cold and warm reboots.

I suspect the root cause in my case was the automatic the update of the
grub-efi-amd64-bin from 2.02 (bionic-security) to 2.04 (bionic-updates).
I have not yet tried a downgrade of the packages due to limited access
to the device.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to grub2 in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1883785

Title:
  intermittent boot failure dell inspiron 3593

Status in grub2 package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Sometimes on reboots and quick cold boots (poweroff then hit power
  immediately) I get

  ```
  error: Command failed. -repeated a number of times then
  error: you need to load the kernel first.

  Press any key to continue...
  ```

  * cold booting usually fixes this and I'm able to boot normally.
  * I have three identical laptops and have seen the issue on 2 (i've only installed 20.04 on two).
  * I don't see the problem on 18.04.
  * If I go into the grub> menu many commands fail "true" "cat" but some don't "ls" "false."
  * Once i'm in grub> menu I can fix things by running "rmmod tpm" then subsequent commands start working again and I can exit and continue.

  The source for grub points to tpm.c when I search for "Command
  failed." I also notice that there's no such file in 2.02 version of
  grub so maybe that's related to why it doesn't work.

  I haven't been able to find a combination of BIOS settings that
  mitigates this. I have tried disabling everything I could think of.

  This laptop has Intel PTT which I think is baked into the BIOS (which
  I upgraded to the newest).

  WORKAROUND 1:
  * Once the system fails to boot:
  * enter grub> by pressing 'c'
  * type 'rmmod tmp'
  * press 'esc' to go back to menu and select desired option and system boots again.

  WORKAROUND 2:
  sudo cp /etc/grub.d/40_custom /etc/grub.d/06_notpm
  sudo bash -c 'echo "rmmod tpm" >> /etc/grub.d/06_notpm'
  sudo update-grub

  I will have these laptops for some time but won't be able to test much
  beyond a week or two most likely.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
  Package: grub2-common 2.04-1ubuntu26
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-37.41-generic 5.4.41
  Uname: Linux 5.4.0-37-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.2
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Tue Jun 16 16:33:42 2020
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-06-08 (8 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
  ProcEnviron:
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: grub2
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1883785/+subscriptions