Lenovo N24 Stuck at init.xz
-
@bjonesqns Please tell us what USB ethernet adapter you have. Please check the Hardware ID in windows device manager and post the full ID string here! I guess it is a realtek adapter as we have seen many issues with those lately. I am looking forward to see what IDs you post.
Do you use the exact same USB adapter to boot the N23’s?
You can try other iPXE binaries like
snp.efi,snponly.efiorrealtek.efi.I compiled a debug enabled iPXE for you to test as well. Find
01_ipxe.efihere. Download and put into your /tftpboot directory on the server. Just rename the originalipxe.efifile and put this one in place for testing.Please post pictures of what you see on screen just as you’ve done in the initial post (thanks for that by the way).
-
Yep, you are stuck at the handoff between iPXE and starting up FOS. We see this all the time with crappy uefi firmware (not implying anything about your current hardware stack). The correct answer is the hardware manufacturer needs to fix their firmware and your problems will go away. We have a band-aid solution to this until the manufacturer releases working firmware. This involves booting directly into FOS from a usb boot drive. This by chance also takes the requirement about having a firmware supported usb network adapter away. As long as FOS supports the usb network adapter it will work.
-
Sure George is right about booting and imaging being possible by using an USB FOS but I am still keen to find out about this. Possibly we will be able to figure this out in general and add a workaround to the iPXE code.
-
I am using the official Lenovo one, its in the verified USB adapters list. The hardware string is:
USB\VID_17EF&PID_7205&REV_3000
USB\VID_17EF&PID_7205It is the exact same adapter I’m just changing what image is associated with it.
snp.efi, and realtek.efi yielded the same issue stuck at init.xz
snponly.efi gets farther, and is capturing the image currently on the 2nd boot, the first time ended in an error. I think that may have been the trick. I will update if it successfully finishes and can push it back out. -
@bjonesqns If that fails we have other options. But for your sake, I hope that is the answer. Its a much cleaner solution when pxe boot works as it should. If snponly works for some and ipxe works for others we have options for that too, but make take a little IT magic to get it working cleanly.
-
@bjonesqns Thanks for the fast reply. Looks as if my guess was spot on. The IDs match those in the RTL8152/3 driver. I start hating those. I am still not absolutely sure if it’s more likely to be an issue with UEFI firmware on the devices or a crappy NIC chip?!? Whatever it is, we have seen many people having issues with those RTL8152/3 based USB NICs.
I’d still be interested to see what you get using
01_ipxe.efi- I just added even more debug information. So please download again if you already got it and give it a go. -
It doesn’t get very far:
-
@bjonesqns Sebastian would surely like your help debugging this. But if you need to get this system imaged today here is a tutorial I was talking about. https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image
Also I sent you some additional information in the FOG IM window.
-
@bjonesqns This is kind of strange. Why would it get less far with the debug enabled binary. Never seen this before. So I checked out the code based on that same git hash number we see in the first picture and added the debugging again. Maybe this makes a difference. Please try
02_ipxe.efi(same download link). -
@bloodwar Please lets keep in mind that using a different USB NIC could lead to a different issue. Possibly it’s a good idea to open a complete new thread and just cross link those two. I just want to avoid mixing things up. So lets move the discussion here for now: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/11201/lenovo-n24-usb-nic-with-asix-ax88772c-chip
