Slow boot times due to strange SATA errors.

[PowerUser]

System configuration:
  Kubuntu 64bit 9.04
  (Linux ath64 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:58:03 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux)
  Hardware: MSI K9N Platinum motherboard (nVidia Nforce 570 chipset),
  5 Gb DDR2-800 RAM
  3 Hitachi HDDs attached over SATA2 links.

Problem description:
 System boots fine but in the middle of boot there is happens nasty ~20 seconds pause.
 Investigation of dmesg log has shown this happens due to strange SATA issues.
 Then kernel hard-resetting SATA link and all works fine since this point.
 But it takes some extra 20 seconds or so during which system does nothing useful, hence booting time is high enough.

More info:
 I did not had this issue with eralier Ubuntus. This issue started to appear only in Ubuntu 8.10 in some intermittent manner and with 9.04 it seems to be stable and occurs on each boot.
 This not seems to be hardware issue: it ONLY happens at boot phase and after hard-resetting link, error no longer happens again, regardless of any disk activity (hence, it does not looks like faulty cable or bad contact which will cause errors in all phases of system operation). Until next reboot occurs, even if this takes month or so.
 Dmesg output is attached. Problem is reported by kernel after 41.889805 seconds mark.

Actually, this bug does not causes any noticeable harm except boot progress stucks for 20 extra seconds doing NOTHING until SATA link is reset. Then booting resumes without any side effects and system works fine without any further issues related to SATA. Looks like driver incorrectly initializes chipset in some scenarios and latest versions contain some regression or something like this (2.6.24 and similar kernels not seems to encounter this issue at all while with 2.6.27 sometimes happens and with 2.28 it happens virtually at each boot).

[PowerUser (i-am-sergey)]

> 27 Apr 09 17:33 Aleksander Zlatanchev affects ubuntu usplash (Ubuntu)
Bad package hinting.

Not seems to be Usplash bug. Tried harder and ... got this issue when running from liveCD.

Happens upon first volume mount attempt - it can take some 20 seconds or so due to this issue and system may complain that there were problems with mount .

Then, same kernel activity takes place, link is hard-reset and then all things are working fine for indefinite time. In particular I can mount\unmount volumes without any issues after link reset and no timeouts will happen before next reboot. So, issue looks like this: "HDD access over SATA could time out when HDD accessed first times after reboot. Then kernel resets link and all working fine". Usplash is surely not a reason for this fault.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

The usplash package has been superseded by plymouth and has been removed from the Ubuntu archive. Closing all related bugs.