Bootloader countdown timer stuck at 4 seconds

Question

I seem to have a problem for one the servers that i am handling, i have reinstalled CentOS for nth times, and formated everything, edited the grub.conf time out = 0, but all still the same, the grub timer wont move, always stuck.

Answer 1

Try adding this to /etc/default/grub

    GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
    GRUB_RECORDFAIL_TIMEOUT=$GRUB_TIMEOUT

Then run sudo update-grub

Support for GRUB_RECORDFAIL_TIMEOUT was added in the middle of the 12.04 cycle, starting from version 1.99-21ubuntu3.3

Answer 2

Did you end up finding a solution to this? I just had a server with this exact issue right after a fresh install of CentOS 6.x. Even though the system seemed to be keeping correct time, replacing the CMOS battery resolved the issue for me. This was either due to a faulty battery, or the CMOS settings getting reset when I replaced the battery.

---

Here are the sites that led me to that solution:

https://serverfault.com/questions/42877/grub-hangs-after-x-2-seconds

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1809044/centos-grub-countdown-stops.html

---

A user on one of those sites said that clearing the "System Event Log" fixed the issue for them. Here are some guides on accessing and clearing the SEL/BMC log:

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/s7000fc4ur/sb/sel_viewer_ug_e1246101.pdf

http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-59226

---

The issue could also be related to Grub's recordfail logic. More info here:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/202309/cannot-get-grub-menu-to-timeout-or-go-away?newreg=dc178d813fbb4f0d803644799bb89c5e

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/872244

Answer 3

Check the date/time setup of your server. After I changed the CMOS battery, server's (HP Proliant) clock was 4 days behind and had same issue, the problem was fixed after setting it up correctly.