9.2 Boot Problem

[Alban Hertroys]

On 13 Apr 2014, at 4:07, Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:

> After much digging, I now know what it going on, but not why.  When getkey is called the first time, menu_timeout_enable is set to one. However, it is set to zero on every check after that.  In getkey after the comment "Was a key pressed" is a check of key to see if a key was pressed.  It is returning a decimal 7 (BEL).  That then clears menu_timeout_enable and it then sits there waiting for a valid key input.  There is no keyboard plugged into the system.  I have no idea how that BEL is being generated or even how to prevent it.  Could it be possible that it comes from the serial console?  I tend to doubt thats the case since the system hangs during boot when the serial console is not connected.  I suppose that I could put in a test for a key value that is not a control character, but that would only work until the next system update.  I'd have to remember to put it back in each time.  Thats not likely to happen.  My memory is not that good. Whats interesting is that I have 4 systems (i386) doing this and 1 system (i386) and 2 systems (amd64) not doing it.  The only common thread is the 4 systems doing it are about 100 miles from me and the working ones are here.

I’m hardly an expert on serial console matters, but reading the above it seems to me that on the problematic systems you have the serial console connected to some other remote machine(s) - at least, I doubt you are using a 100 mile long serial cable.

Since the problematic systems all receive a BEL signal and the ones local to you don’t, the problem may not be at the receiving end but at the sending end. Is there a difference between the sending part of the setup between the systems that do receive that BEL signal and those that don’t?

Alban Hertroys
--
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