[6.6.6] Boot To Cursor / UEFI Secure Boot Fails

[SonWon]

I posted this as a bug and I am posting here because I am on a trial license and the gui login problem is a show stopper to buying a license.  My trial will run out and I'll be unable to continue to make a purchase decision.

 

No plugins installed.

 

While looking for an option to force Unraid gui resolution to 1920x1080 in syslinux configuration I discovered Unraid was booting legacy mode.  I had to turn off Secure Boot in the UEFI BIOS options to get Unraid to boot UEFI.  When I did this Unraid booted 1920x1080 however when you log into Unraid gui it reverts back to 1024x768.  Something isn't right with Unraid or the configuration.  I am using version 6.6.6.  Please help.

 

UPDATE: After more changes to UEFI, it boots 1920x1080 when it gets to the part where it is suppose to show a login screen you get a flashing cursor top left corner.  You can login via a web browser and all appears normal from the browser.  However the native monitor is just showing a cursor.  From the size of the cursor I can tell the screen is 1920x1080.

 

Also Unraid will not boot UEFI with Secure Boot enabled.  Although this could possibly be something in the BIOS settings but it appears to be a bug?  This  makes the system less secure and places the whole system at risk to an UEFI root virus.

 

[bonienl]

UEFI support is very much BIOS and motherboard dependent.

The general advice is to make sure your BIOS is updated to the latest available release, but sometimes you'll need to experiment with both UEFI or LEGACY settings to see what actually works for your situation.

To avoid USB device issues, it is recommended to use a USB2 device and/or slot.

[SonWon]

I am on the newest BIOS and have no USB problems.  The motherboard is an Asrock X470 Taichi.

 

I have tried every available UEFI option and configurations in the BIOS.  When I turn on Secure boot Unraid fails to load.  If you know of a website that explains UEFI setup I would be glad to check there.  UEFI secure boot is a concern.

 

Not being able to login into Unraid from the locally attached monitor is a show stopper as I will only be using one system.

 

 

[bonienl]

7 minutes ago, SonWon said:

I will only be using one system

I am trying to understand your use case and perhaps you need to explain a little more.

 

Most people use Unraid as a NAS server, this allows different systems in a local network to access content stored on the server. At the same time remote management is done thru a browser because often the Unraid server runs headless.

 

More and more users start to combine application and virtualization capabilities together with the NAS functionality. It is common in such a situation to either use a remote desktop approach or install a dedicated GPU for VMs (specially true when gaming is intended). In the later case the GPU is passed through to the VM for optimum performance.

 

It is not strictly required to keep a monitor attached to the Unraid server just for management. Either a remote system or VM running on Unraid can be used for browser access.

 

[SonWon]

1 hour ago, bonienl said:

I am trying to understand your use case and perhaps you need to explain a little more.

 

Most people use Unraid as a NAS server, this allows different systems in a local network to access content stored on the server. At the same time remote management is done thru a browser because often the Unraid server runs headless.

 

More and more users start to combine application and virtualization capabilities together with the NAS functionality. It is common in such a situation to either use a remote desktop approach or install a dedicated GPU for VMs (specially true when gaming is intended). In the later case the GPU is passed through to the VM for optimum performance.

 

It is not strictly required to keep a monitor attached to the Unraid server just for management. Either a remote system or VM running on Unraid can be used for browser access.

 

 

Usage case, I plan to boot into Unraid gui, start one to three VMs, two Linux VMs running on the GeForce GT 1030 and one Gaming VM running on a RX590 using PCIe pass through.  I was hoping to use Unraid to manage the VMs and storage needs.

 

In my opinion Unraid fails to initialize the gui.  I know the monitor works since it boots with other software and I can see the start up text scroll by in high resolution, after that it goes to a cursor when the gui fails to start.

 

[itimpi]

Is it important in your Use Case that the Unraid GUI runs at a higher resolution than 1024 x 768 when not running any VMs (although I agree it should be higher).   From the sound of it when you start the VMs you intend to pass through a GPU to the VMs?    If so from that point until the VM stops the VM is in control of the resolution as it is directly accessing the GPU.    Once you have a VM up and running you can launch a browser session back to the host for administering Unraid.

 

You also mention 2 Linux VMs and only one graphics card for them?   This implies to me that they are an either/or case?  Just checking as any particular GPU can only be passed through to one running VM at a time.  Another thought is do you even need a GPU for the Linux VMs?   VMs do not need to have a dedicated GPU if performance is not the critical factor as they can run with emulated GPUs (that is what you HAVE to do if your system does not support hardware pass-through like mine ).    You could in such a case access the Linux VMs by running the client within the Gaming VM.

[SonWon]

I intend to only pass through one GPU for the gaming VM.  The other two VMs will run with emulated graphics.

 

I wouldn't trust a Win 10 pass through VM as my daily interface manager nor should anyone else.  This defeats the purpose of Unraid.

[SonWon]

I was really looking forward to using Unraid and thought it would be a good fit for what I wanted to build.

 

I have 22 days left on my trial and I am not getting anywhere in resolving this problem.  I know this isn't considered a major / urgent issue.  It is however a show stopper for my usage case.  When I reported the problem I got a lot of push back to just use Unraid differently.  I suppose I should be thankful for the push back since I did learn a lot however the product still doesn't work for me.  I suspect it is an easy fix considering the server works and just gui mode is broken.  I've confirmed that the motherboard and BIOS configuration is not the problem by booting Xubuntu Live 18.04.2.  Xubuntu Live just works while Unraid gui boot does not work for me.

 

Anyway I suppose I'll need to move on to another product since I cannot get this to work.  It looks like I can use mdadm and bcache to arrive at a similar solution.  I admit this will not be as easy as Unraid.  I was hoping to use Unraid for ease of use.

 

My thanks to everyone that tried to help.

[SonWon]

While I was searching the Diagnostic text for clues why Unraid gui was failing it dawned on me that Unraid does not load a native driver for the GPU.  So I searched for a plugin that would load a driver.

 

Good news and bad news:

The good news, I got it working.  Unraid as I suspected was not initializing the GPU properly.  The workaround to fix this problem is to load the 'Unraid Nividia' plugin.  This plugin will load a GPU driver.  This will only work for systems booting on a Nividia GPU and only if it is supported by the driver.  After loading the plugin Unraid gui started working.

 

The bad news, while the video stutter was better it was still present in a VM.  I tested this with Xubuntu 18.04.2 and compared it to a laptop running a VM running the same video.  The laptop is 5 years old and rather slow, Intel i7 4 core, 8 threads, 1.73 Ghz, 460m GPU.  The Unraid server is based on a AMD 2700X 4.3 Ghz, Geforce 1030 GPU.  The VM configurations between the two were identical accept for display.  The laptop VMM uses Spice while Unraid VM uses VNC.  On the laptop VM there was no detectable stutter in the test video.  So the stutter was either Unraid, GPU driver, or VNC.

 

I had hoped Unraid was a good choice for me since I wanted the ease of configuration.  So this will likely be my last post since I will go down a different path.

 

Thanks again for trying to help.