[Bug 1889920] [NEW] Grub unable to boot Ubuntu when using theme with PNG images

[Allan Crooks]

Public bug reported:

I normally use Linux Mint, but I tested the behaviour with Ubuntu and
saw the same results.

The problem seems to occur when:
 - I use Grub installed by Ubuntu 20.04.
 - I install a Grub theme which has PNG images in it.
 - I try to boot into an Ubuntu 20.04 OS.

When I select the OS from the menu, the screen just goes black and
remains that way. If I run it using the other options (where I can see
the output), the last thing it prints is "Loading initial ramdisk..."
and then just hangs there.

To avoid this problem, I can:
 - Boot into an Ubuntu 18.04 OS - the problem doesn't seem to occur there.
 - Manually remove references to images in the theme file.

I'm trying this on a Dell XPS 9380. It didn't matter if I was using a
newer kernel (5.4.0-40) or the default one upon install (5.4.0-26). It
wasn't specific to the installation, since I had multiple installs
trying to debug the issue (both of Linux Mint and Ubuntu).

I tested with the grub2-theme-mint-2k package, but then also tried
downloading other themes from other sites and saw the same issue.
Removing the references to the png images in the file allowed it to work
- it didn't seem to matter that the "insmod png" line was still present.

And it's also really strange that it only seemed to affect Ubuntu 20.04,
but not 18.04 (using kernel 5.3.0-59). I haven't seen anyone else
complain about such a thing, so I don't know if it's something highly
specific to my setup that's causing it.

** Affects: grub (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

** Attachment added: "Diff of grub.cfg between working and non-working configuration"
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1889920/+attachment/5397523/+files/grub.diff

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1889920

Title:
  Grub unable to boot Ubuntu when using theme with PNG images

Status in grub package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I normally use Linux Mint, but I tested the behaviour with Ubuntu and
  saw the same results.

  The problem seems to occur when:
   - I use Grub installed by Ubuntu 20.04.
   - I install a Grub theme which has PNG images in it.
   - I try to boot into an Ubuntu 20.04 OS.

  When I select the OS from the menu, the screen just goes black and
  remains that way. If I run it using the other options (where I can see
  the output), the last thing it prints is "Loading initial ramdisk..."
  and then just hangs there.

  To avoid this problem, I can:
   - Boot into an Ubuntu 18.04 OS - the problem doesn't seem to occur there.
   - Manually remove references to images in the theme file.

  I'm trying this on a Dell XPS 9380. It didn't matter if I was using a
  newer kernel (5.4.0-40) or the default one upon install (5.4.0-26). It
  wasn't specific to the installation, since I had multiple installs
  trying to debug the issue (both of Linux Mint and Ubuntu).

  I tested with the grub2-theme-mint-2k package, but then also tried
  downloading other themes from other sites and saw the same issue.
  Removing the references to the png images in the file allowed it to
  work - it didn't seem to matter that the "insmod png" line was still
  present.

  And it's also really strange that it only seemed to affect Ubuntu
  20.04, but not 18.04 (using kernel 5.3.0-59). I haven't seen anyone
  else complain about such a thing, so I don't know if it's something
  highly specific to my setup that's causing it.

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