Ubuntu Boot Fails or is Extremely Slow with Errors

thingizkhan · June 5, 2025, 5:07pm

When installing or booting Ubuntu, your system ran into a combination of issues:

System hangs or fails to boot correctly, landing in a black screen or GRUB terminal.
PCIe/ACPI/BIOS errors appeared during installation.
GRUB rescue mode showed up, indicating that Ubuntu’s bootloader (GRUB) was confused or unable to find the OS.
Even after installation, the system was very slow, and services like systemd-journald (log manager) were failing.
The GRUB boot menu appeared every time even if Ubuntu was the only OS.

Root Causes Behind the Problem

1. BIOS and Boot Mode Mismatch

Your BIOS was set in a combination of UEFI and Legacy boot modes, causing bootloader confusion.
Secure Boot was either enabled or misconfigured, which often blocks Ubuntu’s GRUB or kernel from booting.
Features like VT-x (VMX) and SGX were disabled in BIOS, sometimes causing systemd/ACPI to throw warnings or errors.

2. ACPI and PCIe Bus Errors

These are often harmless but can delay boot time or trigger kernel panics depending on the system.
Common symptoms: messages like AER: Corrected error received, ACPI BIOS Error, or platform device creation failed.

3. Corrupt or Misconfigured GRUB

GRUB couldn’t detect Ubuntu properly or failed to execute the initrd and vmlinuz files that start Linux.
Sometimes this dropped to the GRUB command line or just displayed a black screen.

4. systemd-journald.service Failed

This service is critical for managing system logs.
If it fails, you don’t get proper boot logs, and some background processes might hang or time out.
Possible causes include:
- Not enough disk space.
- Corrupted journal logs.
- General I/O slowness due to hardware or filesystem errors.

5. `quiet splash` Masking Real Issues

The GRUB boot line included quiet splash by default.
This hides detailed boot logs and only shows a loading screen, which can be frustrating when diagnosing issues.

How We Solved It – Step-by-Step

Enter BIOS and Fix Boot Configuration

Press F10 or Esc on startup to enter BIOS.
Disable Secure Boot.
Enable Legacy Support if your Ubuntu was installed in legacy mode, or keep only UEFI if you installed in UEFI mode.
Enable Intel Virtualization (VT-x/VMX) in BIOS → Advanced settings.
Set your hard disk as the first boot device (not USB or Network).

This ensures BIOS and GRUB agree on how to start the system.

Boot with Safe Kernel Parameters

In the GRUB menu, press e to edit boot parameters.
Remove quiet splash from the line that begins with linux.
Add these parameters after the kernel path:
```
nomodeset acpi=off pci=noaer noapic
```

Why:

nomodeset disables GPU drivers that may cause a black screen.
acpi=off turns off buggy power management features.
pci=noaer disables annoying PCIe error reporting.
noapic disables interrupt controllers that can conflict with hardware.
Press Ctrl+X or F10 to boot.

Check and Repair Filesystem

Open a terminal from live USB or recovery mode:
```
sudo fsck /dev/sda2
```
Fix any filesystem errors.

Disk corruption or dirty shutdowns can make files unreadable for GRUB or journald.

Fix or Reinstall GRUB

If GRUB still isn’t booting properly:

sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt          # Mount your root partition
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
sudo update-grub

Rewrites and refreshes GRUB’s config so it properly detects Ubuntu and kernel images.

Fix Slow Boot by Disabling Failed Services

You saw systemd-journald.service and sssd.socket failing. You can:

Check logs:
```
sudo journalctl -xe
```

Disable SSSD (if unused):

sudo systemctl disable sssd
sudo systemctl stop sssd

Clean corrupted journal logs (if journald fails):

sudo rm -rf /var/log/journal/*
sudo systemctl restart systemd-journald

Speeds up boot and stops the system from waiting on services you don’t need.

Make Ubuntu Boot Directly (No GRUB Menu)

Edit GRUB settings:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Set these values:

GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=0

Then update GRUB:

sudo update-grub

This skips the GRUB menu and boots Ubuntu automatically.

Always Remove `quiet splash` While Debugging

Until your system boots reliably, it’s good practice to:

Remove quiet splash from the GRUB boot line so you can see actual error messages.
Once everything works, you can restore it for a clean UI.

Final Result

After doing all this:

The system boots correctly.
It’s much faster.
Fewer background services are hanging.
You can see boot messages clearly.
No need to manually select Ubuntu every time.

rubi1200 · June 6, 2025, 4:41am

@thingizkhan thank you for sharing this with the community.

Some observations (and possible clarifications needed):

These are only temporary fixes to help get into the system. Making them permanent would require editing the GRUB config file after booting into the system and then sudo update-grub to make it permanent.

However, these are rather clumsy fixes and a user should always try and get to the root cause, which is often a graphics or kernel issue (though not always).

I would add the following comments here:

first identify the correct partition/disk with either sudo fdisk -l or lsblk -f
for the ext family of filesystems, we generally prefer e2fsck, see the relevant man page here
other filesystems require other methods since fsck will not work. For example, if someone is using btrfs it has its own tool for checks
I would add a warning to always check the documentation before using these tools in order to understand which options to use and what they will do

Thanks again for sharing this.

rubi1200 · June 6, 2025, 5:03am

This is relevant if the system only has Ubuntu installed.

For a dual-boot with Windows or other Linux distros, I would not recommend doing this.

tea-for-one · June 6, 2025, 8:56am

It is very useful to allow Grub to appear, even if you only have Ubuntu installed.
Easier access to:-

Boot Ubuntu using an earlier kernel
Boot into Recovery mode
UEFI settings

Suggested settings:-

GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5