[Bug 1883785] Re: intermittent boot failure dell inspiron 3593

[Johann Gail]

Same here on a Dell Inspiron 3593, Bios never updated, version V1.1.0,
ubuntu 18.04. It started suddenly one or two weeks ago, previously
running without problems.

Reboot always works, complete shutdown and boot within some seconds by
power button mostly fails.

On 2021-05-14 there was some updates, one of them probably causing this:
 grub-common:amd64 (2.02-2ubuntu8.21, 2.02-2ubuntu8.23)
 grub2-common:amd64 (2.02-2ubuntu8.21, 2.02-2ubuntu8.23)
 grub-pc-bin:amd64 (2.02-2ubuntu8.21, 2.02-2ubuntu8.23)
 grub-efi-amd64-bin:amd64 (2.02-2ubuntu8.21, 2.04-1ubuntu44)
 grub-efi-amd64-signed:amd64 (1.93.24+2.02-2ubuntu8.21, 1.167~18.04.1+2.04-1ubuntu44)

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Title:
  intermittent boot failure dell inspiron 3593

Status in grub2 package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Sometimes on reboots and quick cold boots (poweroff then hit power
  immediately) I get

  ```
  error: Command failed. -repeated a number of times then
  error: you need to load the kernel first.

  Press any key to continue...
  ```

  * cold booting usually fixes this and I'm able to boot normally.
  * I have three identical laptops and have seen the issue on 2 (i've only installed 20.04 on two).
  * I don't see the problem on 18.04.
  * If I go into the grub> menu many commands fail "true" "cat" but some don't "ls" "false."
  * Once i'm in grub> menu I can fix things by running "rmmod tpm" then subsequent commands start working again and I can exit and continue.

  The source for grub points to tpm.c when I search for "Command
  failed." I also notice that there's no such file in 2.02 version of
  grub so maybe that's related to why it doesn't work.

  I haven't been able to find a combination of BIOS settings that
  mitigates this. I have tried disabling everything I could think of.

  This laptop has Intel PTT which I think is baked into the BIOS (which
  I upgraded to the newest).

  WORKAROUND 1:
  * Once the system fails to boot:
  * enter grub> by pressing 'c'
  * type 'rmmod tmp'
  * press 'esc' to go back to menu and select desired option and system boots again.

  WORKAROUND 2:
  sudo cp /etc/grub.d/40_custom /etc/grub.d/06_notpm
  sudo bash -c 'echo "rmmod tpm" >> /etc/grub.d/06_notpm'
  sudo update-grub

  I will have these laptops for some time but won't be able to test much
  beyond a week or two most likely.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
  Package: grub2-common 2.04-1ubuntu26
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-37.41-generic 5.4.41
  Uname: Linux 5.4.0-37-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.2
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Tue Jun 16 16:33:42 2020
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-06-08 (8 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
  ProcEnviron:
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: grub2
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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