Machine crashes and self-reboots when I do things that interract with GRUB

Software & Operating Systems Linux
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Hi everyone,

I’ve been experiencing a long-standing issue with this machine where any time I try to install software through apt, it tells me "E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run ‘sudo dpkg --configure -a’ to correct the problem. "

But whenever I run that dpkg command, it then runs through its paces until it gets to the GRUB OS Prober, at which point the computer freezes for about 30 seconds, then reboots itself.

I also can’t do update-grub, since that also makes the computer crash itself in the same way.

I’ve experienced this in the past, at which point I reinstalled the OS, but now the exact same issue has come back, leading me to think there is a deeper problem here.

I have only ever run Ubuntu 18.04.3, but would be willing to install another OS, if people think it would help.

Happy to provide any kind of logs or whatever people want. Just let me know. Response time might be a bit slow since I have a full-time job :slight_smile:

Thanks!

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This kind of sounds like a UEFI bug I read about a while ago. Once it got too many UEFI variables set, then any UEFI operation that started a garbage collection would crash.

See if there’s a BIOS update?

1 Like
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Huh. So my mobo is the ASUS PRIME X299 Deluxe.

Looks like my current BIOS version is 1301, while the most up to date is 3006 (which actually seems to have just come out yesterday).

I’ve never done a BIOS update - should I go ahead and do this one? Is it a smarter idea to wait just in case there are big problems with this particular version that haven’t been noticed since it’s so new?