liveusb booting issue due to xhci disconnect on dell precision 5510

[SOLID Ninja Ltd.]

After creating a LiveUSB image and trying to boot it, unrecoverable squashfs errors are encountered because the usb stick disconnects. The laptop is a Dell Precision 5510 system (similar to the new Dell XPS 15).

I've not been able to get a full log in this situation, parameters like rootdelay= do not help although the boot process goes further.

The details below are after booting with toram which seems to side-step this problem. I haven't been able to get logs from the non-booting case yet because some key programs like mount do not get cached and therefore can't be found.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a 16.04 LiveUSB from daily image
2. Try and boot system from LiveUSB
3. Get lots of errors during boot because of the mass storage device disconnecting during boot

Expected behavior:

1. System boots into linux.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: linux-image-4.4.0-10-generic 4.4.0-10.25
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-10.25-generic 4.4.3
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-10-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ubuntu 1953 F.... pulseaudio
CasperVersion: 1.367
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Mar 18 20:33:07 2016
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Alpha amd64 (20160307)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Precision 5510
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/ubnkern initrd=/ubninit file=/cdrom/preseed/username.seed boot=casper debug loglevel=8 toram ---
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-4.4.0-10-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-4.4.0-10-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.156
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 01/25/2016
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 01.01.19
dmi.board.name: 08R8KJ
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr01.01.19:bd01/25/2016:svnDellInc.:pnPrecision5510:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn08R8KJ:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Precision 5510
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[SOLID Ninja Ltd. (solidninja)]

I haven't tried 14.04 which is what Dell ships these systems with. 15.10 has the same behavior though I did not collect any logs.

[SOLID Ninja Ltd. (solidninja)]

I wonder if this a kernel issue or something that systemd? is doing during the boot process that makes it reset the USB controller.

Maybe it's related to http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19678287 but it doesn't sound like it.

Next things to try would be booting to single user mode and trying a vanilla kernel without anything else.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

If you want to test the upstream kernels, they can be downloaded from:

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

[SOLID Ninja Ltd. (solidninja)]

Hmnn I'm less and less sure this is a kernel issue (but still haven't tried other kernels). Booting into 'single' mode works and then continuing from that gives the same problem.

[SOLID Ninja Ltd. (solidninja)]

Managed to get this in single mode as well: