[Bug 1814403] Re: Latest update causes 30 sec. menu delay timeout

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre]

You absolutely can change /etc/grub.d/00_header to change or remove the
code. The problem is; I don't think there is a way around us providing a
way to reach the menu for the those setups where "recordfail", the
feature that lets the boot menu start on failure, doesn't work, while
also making it not show every boot.

In other words, your setup works right now, but waits thirty seconds to
boot -- that timeout can be adjusted by setting
GRUB_RECORDFAIL_TIMEOUT=<some value>  in /etc/default/grub. Reducing the
timeout value is probably the best solution in all cases, but I do think
the default of 30 seconds is reasonable. You get enough time to see the
menu and respond, etc. And it doesn't hold up the boot very long in the
grand scheme of things.

When your system doesn't boot correctly through the kernel however, it
would likely not show the menu without this fix -- you'd have no way to
switch back to a working kernel, because the menu can be hard to reach
at all in these setups.

This bug was meant to address an issue that caused unnecessary timeouts
on systems that should not have needed this workaround, due to some
unforeseen limitations in GRUB. We believe it's been addressed
appropriately.

If you still feel your system is showing the menu and timeout at every
boot unnecessarily, or if you feel the default timeout is too long,
please file a separate bug with the information specific to your system
and particular case so we can look into it -- the particularities of the
system will be important to include in such a bug report.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1814403

Title:
  Latest update causes 30 sec. menu delay timeout

Status in grub2 package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in grub2-signed package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in grub2 source package in Bionic:
  Fix Released
Status in grub2-signed source package in Bionic:
  Fix Released
Status in grub2 source package in Cosmic:
  Fix Committed
Status in grub2-signed source package in Cosmic:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [SRU Justification]
  There is a behavior regression on non-EFI systems with the latest SRU of grub2 which causes unnecessary boot delays.

  [Test case]
  1. Install a system using BIOS mode with /boot on LVM.
  2. Reboot and verify that the boot menu is shown for 30 seconds at boot.
  3. Install grub* from -proposed.
  4. Reboot and verify that the boot menu is not shown.
  5. Install a system using UEFI mode with /boot on LVM.
  6. Reboot and verify that the boot menu is shown for 30 second at boot.
  7. Install grub* from -proposed.
  8. Reboot and verify that the boot menu is still shown.

  [Regression potential]
  The test case is sufficient to verify all possible paths work correctly after the SRU.

  
  KDEneon LTS user edition 5.12, Release 18.04

  grub-common 2.02-2ubuntu8.10 from Ubuntu updates

  Since latest update near the end of Jan. 2019 (29th?), grub menu has
  30 second delay every reboot as though recordfail is set. It did not
  do this before the update.

  After messing with grubenv and recordfails settings, I found this
  paragraph in 00_header in 18.04 that is not in 16.04:

  if lsefi; then
    set timeout=30
    if [ x$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then
      set timeout_style=menu
    fi
  fi

  Note "timeout=30" which is the same as the recordfail timeout. As a
  test, I edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg and changed the 30 to 17 and sure
  enough, that's the source of the timeout.

  Here's the paragraph from 00_header:

  if lsefi; then  set timeout=${GRUB_RECORDFAIL_TIMEOUT:-30}
    if [ x\$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then
      set timeout_style=menu
    fi
  fi

  One odd thing is the 00_header file is from Jan 9th but this bug has
  just appeared so it must be related to grub-common not the the header
  file.

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