[System] Extremely long boot time

[Snowhog]

My laptop. HP Pavilion g7-1070us. 8 GiB of RAM. Mesa Intel® HD Graphics.

From the time I press Enter from the Grub menu, it takes more than two-minutes to reach the Login Screen.

Attaching files analyze.txt, blame.txt, and critical-chain.txt for review by those knowledgeable with those files. I'd like to know what I can do; if I can do anything; to speed up the boot process.

analyze.txt blame.txt critical-chain.txt

[claydoh]

For some reason grub is taking 1 min 45 seconds. Everything else looks fine to me.

No idea why, though. Does it take the same amount of time if you select a different kernel in grub?

[die.boer]

please paste output of these :

systemctl cat grub-common.service

systemctl status grub-common.service --no-pager

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /tmp/grub-test.cfg

Don't make any changes to GRUB or disable any services yet.

PS: the last command does not modify your bootloader configuration.

[Snowhog]

systemctl cat grub-common.service
# /run/systemd/generator.late/grub-common.service
# Automatically generated by systemd-sysv-generator

[Unit]
Documentation=man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
SourcePath=/etc/init.d/grub-common
Description=LSB: Record successful boot for GRUB
Before=multi-user.target
Before=multi-user.target
Before=multi-user.target
Before=graphical.target
After=all.target

[Service]
Type=forking
Restart=no
TimeoutSec=5min
IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
KillMode=process
GuessMainPID=no
RemainAfterExit=yes
SuccessExitStatus=5 6
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/grub-common start
ExecStop=/etc/init.d/grub-common stop
paul@maccat:~$


systemctl status grub-common.service --no-pager
● grub-common.service - LSB: Record successful boot for GRUB
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/grub-common; generated)
Active: active (exited) since Wed 2026-08-19 11:57:22 CDT; 2h 50min ago
Invocation: f359848bcb2f4113a5d360bdb4e16e8f
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
Process: 974 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/grub-common start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Mem peak: 3.7M
CPU: 69ms

Aug 19 11:55:46 maccat systemd[1]: Starting grub-common.service - LSB: Record successful boot fo…GRUB...
Aug 19 11:55:47 maccat grub-common[974]: * Recording successful boot for GRUB
Aug 19 11:57:22 maccat grub-common[974]: ...done.
Aug 19 11:57:22 maccat systemd[1]: Started grub-common.service - LSB: Record successful boot for GRUB.
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
paul@maccat:~$


grub-test.cfg.txt

[die.boer]

and output of these 2 :

sudo cat /etc/init.d/grub-common

sudo bash -x /etc/init.d/grub-common start

[Snowhog]

sudo cat /etc/init.d/grub-common
[sudo: authenticate] Password:
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: grub-common
# Required-Start: $all
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: Record successful boot for GRUB
# Description: GRUB displays the boot menu at the next boot if it
# believes that the previous boot failed. This script
# informs it that the system booted successfully.
### END INIT INFO

command -v grub-editenv >/dev/null || exit 0

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case $1 in
start|restart|force-reload)
log_action_msg "Recording successful boot for GRUB"
[ -s /boot/grub/grubenv ] || rm -f /boot/grub/grubenv
mkdir -p /boot/grub
grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv unset recordfail
log_end_msg $?
;;
stop)
;;
status)
exit 0
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 3
;;
esac

exit 0


sudo bash -x /etc/init.d/grub-common start
+ command -v grub-editenv
+ . /lib/lsb/init-functions
+++ run-parts --lsbsysinit --list /lib/lsb/init-functions.d
++ for hook in $(run-parts --lsbsysinit --list /lib/lsb/init-functions.d 2> /dev/null)
++ '[' -r /lib/lsb/init-functions.d/00-verbose ']'
++ . /lib/lsb/init-functions.d/00-verbose
++ for hook in $(run-parts --lsbsysinit --list /lib/lsb/init-functions.d 2> /dev/null)
++ '[' -r /lib/lsb/init-functions.d/40-systemd ']'
++ . /lib/lsb/init-functions.d/40-systemd
+++ _use_systemctl=0
+++ '[' -d /run/systemd/system ']'
+++ '[' -n '' ']'
+++ '[' grub-common = init-d-script ']'
+++ '[' grub-common = start ']'
+++ executable=/etc/init.d/grub-common
+++ argument=start
+++ prog=grub-common
+++ service=grub-common.service
++++ systemctl -p LoadState --value show grub-common.service
+++ state=loaded
+++ '[' loaded = masked ']'
+++ '[' 5623 -ne 1 ']'
+++ '[' -z '' ']'
+++ case $(readlink -f "$executable") in
++++ readlink -f /etc/init.d/grub-common
+++ '[' loaded '!=' not-found ']'
+++ _use_systemctl=1
++++ systemctl -p CanReload --value show grub-common.service
+++ '[' no = no ']'
+++ '[' start = reload ']'
+++ '[' 1 = 1 ']'
+++ set +e
+++ set +u
+++ case "$argument" in
+++ systemctl_redirect /etc/init.d/grub-common start
+++ local s
+++ local rc
+++ local prog=grub-common
+++ local command=start
+++ case "$command" in
+++ s='Starting grub-common (via systemctl)'
+++ service=grub-common.service
+++ systemctl --quiet is-system-running
+++ '[' start = status ']'
+++ log_daemon_msg 'Starting grub-common (via systemctl)' grub-common.service
+++ '[' -z 'Starting grub-common (via systemctl)' ']'
+++ log_daemon_msg_pre 'Starting grub-common (via systemctl)' grub-common.service
+++ :
+++ '[' -z grub-common.service ']'
+++ echo -n 'Starting grub-common (via systemctl): grub-common.service'
Starting grub-common (via systemctl): grub-common.service+++ log_daemon_msg_post 'Starting grub-common (
via systemctl)' grub-common.service
+++ :
+++ systemctl --no-pager start grub-common.service
+++ rc=0
+++ '[' start = status ']'
+++ log_end_msg 0
+++ '[' -z 0 ']'
+++ log_end_msg_pre 0
+++ :
+++ log_use_fancy_output
+++ '[' -t 1 ']'
+++ '[' xterm-256color ']'
+++ '[' xterm-256color '!=' dumb ']'
+++ '[' -z ']'
+++ return 0
+++ esc=$'\E'
+++ red=$'\E[31m'
+++ yellow=$'\E[33m'
+++ normal=$'\E[0m'
+++ '[' 0 -eq 0 ']'
+++ echo .
.
+++ log_end_msg_post 0
+++ :
+++ return 0
+++ return 0
+++ exit 0

[die.boer]

and these ...

time sudo grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv unset recordfail

sudo grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv list

findmnt /boot

findmnt /boot/grub​

ls -l /boot/grub/grubenv

sudo file /boot/grub/grubenv​

[Snowhog]

Is the first command going to change the file?

[die.boer]

oops , yes, if recordfail is present...
rather run

time sudo grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv list

[Snowhog]

time sudo grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv list
env_block=512+1

real0m1.851s
user0m0.007s
sys0m0.024s


findmnt /boot
and
findmnt /boot/grup
Just returns to the prompt. I do have /boot and /boot/grub directories.


ls -l /boot/grub/grubenv
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 1024 Aug 19 14:47 /boot/grub/grubenv

sudo file /boot/grub/grubenv

That is not the safe way to open/edit this file.


sudo grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv list
env_block=512+1

[die.boer]

That is not the safe way to open/edit this file.

sudo file /boot/grub/grubenv does not open the file for editing or modify it. The file command simply examines the file and reports what type of file it appears to be.

[Snowhog]

sudo file /boot/grub/grubenv does not open the file for editing or modify it. The file command simply examines the file and reports what type of file it appears to be.

Okay. When I ran that command I got:

sudo file /boot/grub/grubenv
/boot/grub/grubenv: cannot open `/boot/grub/grubenv' (No such file or directory)

I do have file installed.

[die.boer]

there appears to be an extra unicode character '/boot/grub/grubenv' after the grubenv?

[Snowhog]

cat /boot/grub/grubenv
# GRUB Environment Block
# WARNING: Do not edit this file by tools other than grub-editenv!!!
env_block=512+1
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################################## ####
################################################## ################################paul@maccat:~$

Note: The space 'break' shown in the #'s doesn't exist in the file. The space shown is a product of line length limits in vBulletin.

[die.boer]

mine for instance:

jp@jp:~$ admin
Password:
admin@jp:~$ sudo file /boot/grub/grubenv
[sudo: authenticate] Password:
/boot/grub/grubenv: ASCII text, with very long lines (930)
admin@jp:~$