Grub blank no list of generations only timer

Help
1

hi all
im brand new to nixos and installed 23.05
after install and reboot grub shows Nixos and formware menu, boots into nix no problems
i add my custom entries into the configuration.nix and run the rebuild switch. no erros, all good.
i added the nvidia services and no errors and can log into either x11 or wayland.
the problem i have is that i have a blank grub menu and no display of any generations and just presented with a visable timer counting down from 5 sec’s.
I can see all the entries in loader (5 generation.conf) , grub.cfg and the efi folders (boot,linux,systemd and nixos)

i did all sorts of things to no sucesss:

  • sudo nix-store --verify --check-contents --repair
  • sudo nixos-rebuild boot
  • sudo nix-channel --update
  • sudo nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade
  • sudo nix-store --verify --check-contents --repair
  • which grub-install > /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin/grub-install
  • sudo nix-env -i grub
  • sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  • sudo mkdir -p /boot/grub
  • sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  • [ -d /sys/firmware/efi/efivars ] && echo “UEFI” || echo “Legacy” > uefi
  • sudo nixos-rebuild --install-bootloader switch

I’m out of ideas currently for why I’m not getting generations to display in grub screen?

# Bootloader.
  boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
  boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;

fileSystems."/" =
    { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/e0e0daba-b88e-4171-8ea1-19ea9711303b";
      fsType = "ext4";
    };

  fileSystems."/boot" =
    { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/B538-2C4B";
      fsType = "vfat";
    };

  swapDevices =
    [ { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/a7fe4b95-dea0-42b6-b4f3-fc970e896e8c"; }
    ];

sudo blkid
/dev/sda2: UUID="e0e0daba-b88e-4171-8ea1-19ea9711303b" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="root" PARTUUID="57334452-af19-9241-9693-751469be603b"
/dev/sda3: LABEL="swap" UUID="a7fe4b95-dea0-42b6-b4f3-fc970e896e8c" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="73136ef7-dd89-214b-a873-6a2c32187abc"
/dev/sda1: UUID="B538-2C4B" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="ae6fb7f0-2ff7-8243-ab41-c97f282c5be2"

lsblk -o NAME,PARTUUID
NAME   PARTUUID
sda    
├─sda1 ae6fb7f0-2ff7-8243-ab41-c97f282c5be2
├─sda2 57334452-af19-9241-9693-751469be603b
└─sda3 73136ef7-dd89-214b-a873-6a2c32187abc
sr0
2

I don’t know what exactly is wrong here, but I notice confusion.

There are two different bootloaded that NixOS can use. One is called “Grub”, another “systemd-boot”. Your post talks about grub, but it seems that you are actually using systemd-boot:

boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
3

Thanks for the feedback. I have no idea why the grub screen dosnt show any generation lists. I have 5 in the enteries folder.

Just a blank screen and timer ticking backwards. On fresh install and 1st reboot it was presented with 2 options in the grub screen (nixos and firmware settings) .

The issue is with blank grub screen with no visible generation entries only happened straight after i ran the rebuild switch fir the first time and I rebooted afterwards

4

Grub does not display many generations, just the latest, the previous are in an extra submenu.

Systemd boot gives you a flat list.

5

Interestingly, neither systemd nor grub display anything on the post-boot screen. meaning a black screen with a timer counting backwards from 5 seconds and booting blindly to whatever my latest conf file is? None of my generations are visible. Is this a S3 server issue or a 23.05 bug? only got this after my first rebuild switch on a fresh install?

6

So far I am really not understanding what you are currently using. Can you provide a screenshot or photo, or video even of what you see during boot?

7

I reinstalled Nexus after changing the bios from UEFI to BIOS. Everything is now operational. I believe I’ve figured it out. I didn’t configure the proper partitions, labels, and flags to include efi, and the os prober always failed to scan and display the generations on the grub screen when I booted the computer. All of my bash scripts are being converted to work on Nixos. The shebang in normal bash scripts does not run unless I include

#!/run/current-system/sw/bin/bash

at the start. extremely aggravating

8

Depends on the shebang. #!/usr/bin/env bash should work, but #!/bin/env bash or #!/usr/bin/bash will not.