Grub menu hangs on down arrow press with USB keyboard on cold boot

[Mattias Johnsson]

I installed Windows 8.1 64-bit, then installed Ubuntu 15.04 bit, both in UEFI mode.

When booting, I am presented with the usual GRUB menu, with Ubuntu preselected at the top. If I press enter, Ubuntu loads. If I press arrow down (just once) to move down the menu toward the Windows entry, the highlighted entry skips rapidly to the bottom of the list and GRUB hangs and becomes completely non-responsive. Cycling the power or pressing reset is required.

This only happens on a cold boot, i.e. if the computer was off prior to going to the GRUB menu. If I get to the GRUB menu via pressing the "reset" button, or booting into Ubuntu and choosing "restart", the arrow keys work fine in the GRUB menu.

In addition, this bug only occurs with my USB keyboard (Logitech K120), not with my PS/2 keyboard (Logitech Deluxe 250). Trying different USB ports doesn't help.

Summary:

What happened: GRUB hangs if I press cursor down when using a USB keyboard after a cold boot
What should happen: I should be able to use arrow down to move down the GRUB boot menu to the entry I require
To reproduce: Install Windows 8, then install Ubuntu 15.04. Turn off power. Turn on power, boot computer, at GRUB menu press arrow down.

Presumably all hardware info is attached to report, but just to be sure: I'm trying to boot off a GPT partitioned 500GB SSD, and have a GA-Z97-D3H motherboard.

If you need any further information, just ask!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: grub2 (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-15.15-generic 3.19.3
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-15-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Apr 26 22:34:35 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-04-25 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: grub2
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mattias Johnsson (m-t-johnsson)]

Here are the GRUB configuration files from /etc/grub.d

[Mattias Johnsson (m-t-johnsson)]

Further information: This bug is present regardless of the "Legacy USB devices" setting in the UEFI menu. I've tried "Disabled", "Enabled" and "Auto" with no luck.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

I'm not quite sure why this would happen. I also use a USB keyboard, without seeing this issue.

Does the same happen if you use a different USB keyboard, assuming you can have access to another?

Thanks!

[Mattias Johnsson (m-t-johnsson)]

Hi Mathieu,

Okay, I tried another USB keyboard (an Acer of some type) and the problem is still present.

So it does look like a USB problem of some sort, rather than a problem with the specific keyboard I was using.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[A.R.NARESH (naresh14334)]

it also affects me

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Kojo (rmvirut)]

Been facing this issue for a while myself. I have Ubuntu and Windows on two different hdds and used bit repair to make sure Grub was setup well.
But now it just hangs when I try to select any OS part from Ununtu

[arm-c (arickmcniel)]

Not sure if it is the same issue, but sounds very similar.

Situation: GRUB freezes on my laptop at countdown 10 with not ability to move anything. Currently, this happens everytime my external keyboard is attached.

Equipment: HP X360 i7 configured dual boot. USB 3.1 (USB-A), USB 3.1 (USB-C) and Thunderbolt (USB-C). UEFI Boot.

This is an issue because I want to leave my computer docked and survive a reboot without having to unplug the keyboard all the time. I've googled solutions and "legacy boot" would disable my installed OSs. There is not bios option for "legacy USB" support and none of the GRUB-2 configurations to enable USB, usb-keyboard, etc... have worked.

MY KEYBOARD works before and after grub.... meaning, that at power-on, I can press F10 on usb-keyboard and get to BIOS. Plugging in the keyboard after GRUB boot, keyboard works.

I have tried three separate keyboard... all of which I know are working.

[AzP (peterasplund)]

This also affects me, and I've been seeing this for many years.

For me, it only happens if I have my keyboard attached via a USB-hub, not if the keyboard is plugged directly into the computer. It doesn't matter if my mouse is attached or not.
It happened with the USB-hub on my old screens (2 HP screens) as well as my new screen (Samsung Odyssey G9).

I've been running Grub2 from the beta days up until 2.06, which I'm currently using, and the problem persists.

[AzP (peterasplund)]

It seems the problem can be averted by pressing ESC before doing anything else.

[Clément R (itooh)]

Well, I'm encountering this exact issue as well!

I've had a dual boot on two hard drives for a while (Windows 10 / Linux Mint), and recently changed my GPU. After upgrading the drivers on both OS, GRUB seems to get stuck on any key I press. Meaning that Enter works, but pressing down goes directly at the last index, and GRUB doesn't respond then.

Also if I press c, the command window open, and a bunch of "ccccc" are typed in the prompt. Not undefinitely though (as I first expected). It lasts just for one second. Then whatever letter I type, it also gets spammed for a second. Mening that the console is unusable, but not frozen like the GRUB menu.

Another strange aspect: sometimes, this problem does not happen anymore! I couldn't find any pattern, but I've been able on rare occasions to use GRUB with no issue. I then thought I somehow fixed it, but on the next boot the bug was still there…

What I've tried so far, with no success:
- Switching my USB keyboard from a USB3 to a USB2 port
- Disabling the Legacy USB support in the BIOS
- Disabling XHCI in BIOS
- Pressing ESC (as mentioned above) just freezes GRUB (and so does Page Down and shift)
- Purging and Re-installing GRUB (through boot-repair)

I also noted that, when booting from a live-usb, the GRUB there worked with no issue.

The next step for me now is updating my BIOS. It's a bit scary I must admit (It already took me all morning and 3 tries today to reinstall GRUB, just to get back to point zero!).

Anyway, if it can help solve this issue, here are the data relative to my BIOS from the command "sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date": https://paste2.org/2x7kv61L
And here is the last BootInfo log from boot-repair (sda is the windows drive, sdb linux mint, and sdc is just a storage drive): https://paste2.org/9pNb5WsI

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 15.04 (vivid) reached end-of-life on February 4, 2016.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in.

[Clément R (itooh)]

Right, I forgot the gap between the author's version and mine!

I'm using Mint 20.2, which mean I'm on Ubuntu 20.04 (focal).

[Clément R (itooh)]

I eventually solved it! I'll post my solution here if it can help anyone.

I realised that the key wasn't "stuck", rather it was more "sensitive" than it should be. Meaning that GRUB was reading on key press as a dozen or more (which eventually frozed it).

After some unsuccessful grub configuration, what solved the issue for me was to:
- Reset BIOS / Clear CMOS on my motherboard
- Switch the USB port of the keyboard to a USB2 port.

Note on the second step: I first tried that while grub was running, it had no effect. It's only after rebooting that the problem was fix!
For anyone in the future facing the same issue, I recommend trying the second step first (and make sure that you reboot before each attempt). The first step probably allowed me to fix a hardware malfunction in the BIOS.

For more contexts, here are the discussions I had on the Mint forum that helped me solve this: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=381974

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]