High delay when booting (grub waits with a blank purple screen for 10 seconds before booting the kernel)

Well... I think syslog is important

Please attach your /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Also the 15 seconds you are counting are with the grub menu visible? If you hit enter to boot right away is there still a significant delay after that?

WORKAROUND:

1. Edit /etc/default/grub and change GRUB_TIMEOUT to 0 or 1.

2. sudo update-grub

3. Your machine now boots 9-10 seconds faster, which is a big deal for modern machines that took 15-20 seconds before. Now it's around only 5-11 seconds :)

Verified on several cosmic machines that the above workaround does reduce the boot time by 10 seconds.

I think when we changed to using GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden in

  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02-2ubuntu8.2

instead of GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT, we missed updating GRUB_TIMEOUT=0. In GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden, GRUB_TIMEOUT is what is used.

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu7

---------------
grub2 (2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu7) cosmic; urgency=medium

  [ Steve Langasek ]
  * debian/grub-common.install.in: install the systemd unit that's part of
    initrd fallback handling, missed when the feature landed.

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * debian/rules: set DEFAULT_TIMEOUT to 0 if we've enabled FLICKER_FREE_BOOT,
    to avoid unnecessary delay at boot time. (LP: #1784363)

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Fri, 12 Oct 2018 11:10:10 -0400

Hello Vitaliy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2 into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02-2ubuntu8.8 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Hello Vitaliy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2-signed into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2-signed/1.93.9 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

I have enabled proposed on a new VM install and updated everything.
grub-pc version installed is 2.02-2ubuntu8.8
I rebooted and observed the same 10 second delay.
I logged back in and ran update-grub for good measure and rebooted - I observed the same 10 second delay.
I edited the grub config and commented out the GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE, updated grub and rebooted. I was presented with the menu and a 10 second timer counting down.

I /think/ this means the problem isn't fixed, so marking as failed.

GRUB_TIMEOUT is still set to 10.

Hello Vitaliy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2 into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02-2ubuntu8.9 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Hello Vitaliy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2-signed into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2-signed/1.93.10 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

The test case seems wrong to be. grub-pc is perhaps the bios grub? Anyway, I have:

$ apt-cache policy grub2
grub2:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.02-2ubuntu8.9
  Version table:
     2.02-2ubuntu8.9 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-proposed/universe amd64 Packages
     2.02-2ubuntu8.7 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe amd64 Packages
     2.02-2ubuntu8 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages

GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 is now in /etc/default/grub and the boot delay is gone!

$ apt-cache policy grub2-common
grub2-common:
  Installed: 2.02-2ubuntu8.9
  Candidate: 2.02-2ubuntu8.9
  Version table:
 *** 2.02-2ubuntu8.9 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.02-2ubuntu8.7 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
     2.02-2ubuntu8 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 2.02-2ubuntu8.9

---------------
grub2 (2.02-2ubuntu8.9) bionic; urgency=medium

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * debian/default/grub.md5sum: add entry for 2.02-2ubuntu8.7; to force an
    update of /etc/default/grub back to the correct timeout value of 0 if the
    file has otherwise not been edited by the user. (LP: #1784363)

  [ Steve Langasek ]
  * debian/grub-check-signatures: Handle the case where we have unsigned
    vmlinuz and signed vmlinuz.efi.signed. (LP: #1788727)

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Thu, 08 Nov 2018 10:53:28 -0500

The verification of the Stable Release Update for grub2 has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

This bug was fixed in the package grub2-signed - 1.93.10

---------------
grub2-signed (1.93.10) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Rebuild against grub2 2.02-2ubuntu8.9 (LP: #1784363) (LP: #1788727)

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Thu, 08 Nov 2018 10:54:58 -0500