Grub error message on MacBook Pro

[MAFoElffen]

I just booted my Mac Book (3,1)... Let me tell you that any edits to /boot/grub/grub.cfg shouldn't do anything. As that file is built dynamically during bootup, from the files in /etc/grub.d

mafoelffen@Mikes-MacBook:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 6.066s (kernel) + 1min 38.418s (userspace) = 1min 44.484s 
graphical.target reached after 1min 33.600s in userspace
mafoelffen@Mikes-MacBook:~$ systemd-analyze blame
17min 3.858s apt-daily-upgrade.service
     41.207s snapd.service
     23.584s networkd-dispatcher.service
     23.520s logrotate.service
     22.989s ua-timer.service
     18.267s udisks2.service
     16.949s ModemManager.service
     16.838s snapd.apparmor.service
     16.557s apparmor.service
     16.154s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
     15.130s dev-sda7.device
      9.559s dev-loop10.device
      9.559s accounts-daemon.service
      9.454s dev-loop14.device
      9.194s dev-loop13.device
      8.558s dev-loop11.device
      8.252s dev-loop12.device
      8.228s systemd-journal-flush.service
      8.191s dev-loop18.device
      8.140s dev-loop8.device
      8.101s dev-loop1.device
      8.083s dev-loop7.device
      7.444s power-profiles-daemon.service
      7.423s polkit.service
      7.188s dev-loop2.device
      7.008s NetworkManager.service
      7.007s avahi-daemon.service
      7.005s bluetooth.service
      6.656s switcheroo-control.service
      6.634s thermald.service
      6.616s systemd-logind.service
      6.590s dev-loop4.device
      6.588s dev-loop6.device
      6.039s wpa_supplicant.service
      5.836s dev-loop0.device
      4.923s cups.service
      4.178s systemd-udevd.service
      4.064s packagekit.service
      3.591s update-notifier-download.service
      3.450s rsyslog.service
      3.327s apport.service
      3.121s lightdm.service
      3.106s plymouth-quit-wait.service
      2.937s dev-loop23.device
      2.721s snap-bare-5.mount
      2.656s snap-canonical\x2dlivepatch-146.mount
      2.557s snap-core-14784.mount
      2.370s snap-core18-2697.mount
      2.332s dev-loop20.device
      2.160s snap-core20-1822.mount
      2.159s gpu-manager.service
      2.083s grub-common.service
      1.983s snap-firefox-1993.mount
      1.964s snap-firefox-2391.mount
      1.931s upower.service
      1.901s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-70D6\x2d1701.service
      1.846s systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
      1.754s snap-gnome\x2d3\x2d38\x2d2004-119.mount
      1.591s snap-gtk\x2dcommon\x2dthemes-1519.mount
      1.543s systemd-modules-load.service
      1.542s snap-gtk\x2dcommon\x2dthemes-1535.mount
      1.524s e2scrub_reap.service
      1.399s snap-snap\x2dstore-599.mount
      1.259s systemd-rfkill.service
      1.217s snap-snap\x2dstore-638.mount
      1.212s systemd-sysusers.service
      1.201s e2scrub_all.service
      1.087s colord.service
      1.000s systemd-random-seed.service
       968ms user@1000.service
       967ms systemd-resolved.service
       890ms systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
       824ms systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service
       824ms snapd.seeded.service
       794ms snap-snapd\x2ddesktop\x2dintegration-49.mount
       790ms keyboard-setup.service
       761ms systemd-journald.service
       755ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
       728ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
       726ms kerneloops.service
       674ms grub-initrd-fallback.service
       573ms systemd-sysctl.service
       533ms systemd-timesyncd.service
       485ms modprobe@drm.service
       479ms systemd-oomd.service
       417ms dev-loop22.device
       407ms fstrim.service
       314ms openvpn.service
       288ms systemd-remount-fs.service
       255ms dev-disk-by\x2duuid-b4d75638\x2dd0b2\x2d40f8\x2da430\x2d8ad758768>
       227ms rtkit-daemon.service
       190ms snap-gnome\x2d3\x2d38\x2d2004-137.mount
       172ms setvtrgb.service
       171ms ufw.service
       159ms boot-efi.mount
       148ms plymouth-start.service
       135ms snap-core20-1852.mount
       117ms console-setup.service
       112ms snap-canonical\x2dlivepatch-196.mount
       105ms snap-snapd\x2ddesktop\x2dintegration-57.mount
        99ms plymouth-read-write.service
        96ms dev-hugepages.mount
        92ms dev-mqueue.mount
        88ms sys-kernel-debug.mount
        85ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount
        84ms proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount
        77ms snap-core22-607.mount
17min 3.858s apt-daily-upgrade.service
     41.207s snapd.service
     23.584s networkd-dispatcher.service
     23.520s logrotate.service
     22.989s ua-timer.service
     18.267s udisks2.service
     16.949s ModemManager.service
     16.838s snapd.apparmor.service
     16.557s apparmor.service
     16.154s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
     15.130s dev-sda7.device
      9.559s dev-loop10.device
      9.559s accounts-daemon.service
      9.454s dev-loop14.device
      9.194s dev-loop13.device
      8.558s dev-loop11.device
      8.252s dev-loop12.device
      8.228s systemd-journal-flush.service
      8.191s dev-loop18.device
      8.140s dev-loop8.device
      8.101s dev-loop1.device
      8.083s dev-loop7.device

Mine is slower than yours. Core 2 Duo is not fast.

[abt8102]

Yes I did look at systemd-analyze blame and dmesg but the delay I'm seeing is happening before the kernel is loaded. I found bug reports of people having similar problems here and here

I added a debug=all to my /boot/grub/grub.cfg and indeed grub is spamming log messages for several seconds after it supposedly handed over control to the kernel. It seemed to be stuck in a loop printing thousands of messages like this (with increasing sector addresses):

disk/efi/efidisk.c:593: reading 0x40 sectors at the sector 0xfefdb80 from hd0

The harddisk is a brand-new SSD that I only installed days ago. I had the same delay (only even longer) with the HDD that was previously installed, so I doubt there is anything wrong with the hard drive(s).

Since I don't really need Grub on this system at all, I want to get rid of the boot loader entirely and boot the kernel directly. I hope that will fix the problem.

[abt8102]

Hm sadly booting the kernel directly doesn't speed things up either. After powering on the MacBook I just get a white-screen for about 30 seconds and then I get the first kernel diagnostic messages.

systemd-analyze reports a total boot time of about 20 seconds. However measuring the time from power-on to desktop with a stopwatch shows that it takes a little less than a full minute.

Startup finished in 4.634s (kernel) + 15.128s (userspace) = 19.762s 
graphical.target reached after 15.117s in userspace

I have also previously spent days messing around with various invocations of Apple's bless tool and mactel's Linux equivalent hfs-bless but it never made any difference. I don't even know who is to blame at this point. Linux or the Apple firmware?

Anyway this has been an extremely frustrating experience and since I'm all our of ideas I guess I'll just have to accept this terribly slow boot process.

[MAFoElffen]

My MacBook (3,1) is 2007, Has Core2Duo like yours, but is 2 years older. I also have an SSD installed in mine.

I have booted Intel version of it with similar config (So Mac and Windows types of machines)... The Core 2 Duo, is painstakingly slow to boot. I just accept that.

You cay you have a 30 second delay. Mine takes almost 2 minutes to boot. Your's is already booting faster than mine.