Dropping into text mode during boot

[Colin Law]

2009/10/13 Chris G <cl at isbd.net>:
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 09:24:14PM +0100, Colin Law wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I noticed the other day that one of my machines, running Jaunty
>> standard install and all up to date, is dropping into text mode during
>> boot.  It starts ok with the oscillating yellow blob on the orange
>> line but then drops into text mode, with the first line showing "*
>> Reading files needed to boot".  It carries on showing loads of stuff
>> then displays the graphical login screen and behaves perfectly
>> thereafter.  I don't remember doing anything other than routine
>> updates.
>>
>> I have googled and found nothing that seemed to correspond to my
>> problem (I did find a suggestion that this could happen if the swap
>> partition uuid was not the same in fstab and initramfs resume file,
>> but I have checked and these are ok).
>>
>> I have looked in various log files but cannot see anything untoward,
>> but to be honest I am not sure what I am looking for (or where I
>> should look for that matter).
>>
>> Any help would be much appreciated.
>>
> Doesn't this happen when something takes a longer time than normal,
> with the intent of showing you what is delaying the boot.

I think you may be right, I have just looked more carefully at another
machine and it does not show the oscillating yellow blob at all.  On
the failing machine it shows for maybe 5 seconds before dropping into
text mode.  Presumably then something is waiting during those seconds.
 Any idea where to look to find out what is causing it?

Colin