After unclean shutdown, grub2 (grub-pc) fails until a keyboard is plugged in.

[blaisegassend]

Binary package hint: grub-pc

We are having some problems with grub2 (grub-pc) as it is installed by default in Karmic. This is running on a robot that does not usually have a keyboard attached.

Here are the steps that cause the problem for us:

1) Boot the computer.
2) Do a hard shut down (flick the power switch).
3) Turn the computer back on with no keyboard/mouse connected.
4) Grub prints "GRUB Loading." and hangs forever.
5) Reboot as many times as you like, no change.
6) Plug in a USB keyboard and reboot.
7) The system boots fine.
8) Unplug the keyboard and reboot.
9) The system still boots fine.

This seems to be an interaction between having no keyboard plugged in, and having an unclean root partition. I had a quick glance at the code, and saw no obvious interaction. I tried using grub1 (grub package), and the problem went away, so that's what we are doing now. But there is something here that needs fixing.

Other information:
pr2@ta120:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10

pr2@ta120:~$ apt-cache policy grub-pc
grub-pc:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.97~beta4-1ubuntu4.1
  Version table:
     1.97~beta4-1ubuntu4.1 0
        500 http://aptproxy.willowgarage.com karmic-updates/main Packages
        500 http://aptproxy.willowgarage.com karmic-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.97~beta4-1ubuntu3 0
        500 http://aptproxy.willowgarage.com karmic/main Packages
(Note: grub-pc got uninstalled when we switched to grub)

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Mar 8 12:16:03 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: grub-pc (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: grub2
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1515): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1515): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1628): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:1615): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed