Hotplug subsystem initialization upon boot freezes

[Eivind Ødegård]

I have a Dell latitude LS with a cardbus D-link DWL-AG650 wireless nic. This card is Atheros based, and thus uses the ath_hal and ath_pci modules.
When booting, my computer frequently hard freezes when it reaches the "Starting hotplug subsystem" step. Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't help, it needs a cold shutoff.
The problem is not completely persistent. Sometimes, the bootup goes smooth, sometimes, it helps to unplug the network card before booting, and sometimes, not even that helps. I know it's hard to pinpoint this, and I know it's not a "perfect" bugreport, but if you show me the necessary steps to extract more information, I will do it. Maybe we'll find out that this is a real bug, and not just me...
Dmesg shows no relevant information, but of course, it wouldn't in the cases when the computer starts normally. That's why I find it difficult to find out more about this. Help is appreciated.

[frogspawn (ubuntu-frogspawn)]

I have a Latitude Cpi A400XT and have just installed Ubuntu. I have a similar, or perhaps the same problem. Sometimes it boots clean others it hangs at "Starting hotplug subsystem."
Last time it happened I powered it off and rebooted into recovery mode.
I looked at /var/log/kern.log and found these failed events:

Dec 13 09:01:54 localhost kernel: [4294683.361000] cdrom: open failed.
Dec 13 09:01:54 localhost kernel: [4294719.354000] cdrom: open failed.
Dec 13 09:01:54 localhost kernel: [4294725.546000] shpchp:
acpi_shpchprm:\_SB_.PCI0 evaluate _BBN fail=0x5
Dec 13 09:01:54 localhost kernel: [4294725.546000] shpchp:
acpi_shpchprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x5

I'm a complete newcomer to Ubuntu and I don't know whether these fails are significant.
But if it helps anyone who's looking at this, I'd appreciate any help I can get fixing the problem.

[Chris Mower (chris-mower)]

I have two Dell Latitudes, a Latitude CPi and a Latitude CPx, both of which exhibit the same problem. The system will freeze at the Starting hotplug subsystem.
The computer is not frozen as it will respond to the change of disk in the CD Rom drive.

[PKirkham (pete-kirkham)]

I have the same problem in an ACER 3 GHz P IV machine which I've just loaded with 2.6.12-9 kernel etc
The boot gets to Starting hotplug subsystem and will never go any further.
This is a dual boot with Windows and I only have 10Gb for Ubuntu and 2Gb for a swap space. Is that the problem.

This is systematic so I can't boot Ubuntu at all.

[PKirkham (pete-kirkham)]

This follows on from the previous comment. If I boot in recovery mode I get
azx-get-response timeout in an infinite loop Does that mean anything to anyone.

I was wondering if this might have anything to do with the multi format card reader which this machine has on the front panel? However I've just tried to unplug it and that doesn't change anything.

[PKirkham (pete-kirkham)]

Looking at this again, when I boot XP, which works fine, the multi-card reader is on IRQ 23 Memory DC004000 to DC007FFF over 4 devices.
The Ubuntu version is in fact 2.6.9 which was/is the latest install version I had although it goes to 2.6.10 when connected to the network on another (older) machine which works. The hotplug subsystem doesn't seem essential so how can you select the modules you want to load?

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

hotplug is no longer in Ubuntu

[PKirkham (pete-kirkham)]

Do you mean in Breezy or in Dapper? Because it certainly seems to be in Breezy! I'm using the latest ISO of Ubuntu Install 386 I could find. Does this mean there's a way out of this mess?

Looking forward to hearing from someone.

Pete

[aviya (daniel-tefillin)]

Hi I just tried to install Linux on a brand new machine. It holds on line "starting hotplug subsystem" and even when left there over night it was still there the next day? I would love to hear a solution.
See this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=10193
Take care Daniel

[aviya (daniel-tefillin)]

forgot to mention the linux I mentioned above is ubunto and kubuntu