[UEFI boot only] Holding shift fails to display grub2 menu

Hi Martin. The new grub2 is described here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2 where it says holding down shift will show the grub menu (though I haven't had need to try this myself yet). Can you try that and report back?

Try holding down Shift at boot time. This change was required by:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/KarmicBootExperienceDesignSpec#Bootloader

On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 11:12:43PM -0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> Try holding down Shift at boot time. This change was required by:
>
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/KarmicBootExperienceDesignSpec#Bootloader

Ah, I see. Something a committee thought was too cute for words trumps
usability. Pardon me if I'm amazed - we so rarely see this in open
source software.

Considering the brokeness, apparently quite deeply rooted in alpha 5,
with the Radeon video in that box, I don't see any point in swapping
disks around again to try this invisible magic - I only need it to get
it to boot to a text console, since X fails after GDM authentication,
and I've since learned enough to feel that on this hardware alpha 5
just isn't worth the effort. Maybe the next one will have versions of
the various parts that work together.

I'd like to leave you with one thought: What does it say about how
usable this is that I had to file a freaking bug report to learn of
this silliness?

I'll adopt this, as I have similar issues, and can confirm that holding shift down doesn't work on this machine (although it does on others).

I'm confused by the description of this ticket, but is this about holding the Shift key during boot not working as intended? I'm asking because that's what I'm experiencing. That is, I'm unable to bring up the boot menu by holding down Shift at boot time.

Also, I was looking at Bug #502138 which to me looks related to said issue (although they might be completely separate as well).

One thing to check for is: if you are using a USB keyboard, does your BIOS support it? For me, I had to enable "USB Legacy Mode" in order to even be able to select which kernel to boot. Note that this is for a non-hidden GRUB2 with a non-zero timeout, as I couldn't seem to get the shift-key trick to work for a zero timeout. Will check again now and report back.

After some rather meticulous testing, I have come to the very scientific conclusion that holding down the shift key works only *some* of the time for displaying the GRUB2 menu when GRUB2_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 is set. Repeatedly pressing the shift key down increases the chance of success somewhat. When it does not succeed, I see the underscore cursor ( _ ) flash for a few seconds, as if waiting for me to press a button, but mashing the shift and the esc keys at that point does not bring up the GRUB menu.
From [1], this seems to be intended behaviour:

"During boot, the system will check the SHIFT key status. If it cannot determine the key status, a short delay will enable the user to display the menu by pressing the ESC key."

Whilst it seems to wait for me to change my mind, it does not seem to detect me furiously pressing SHIFT or ESC.

[1] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2

Marking as confirmed since multiple users have reported this.

Still present in current Lucid.

Is this a BIOS problem? I also cannot get my machine to show the menu. I am on a USB keyboard, but I know for certain that my BIOS supports it. Holding down Shift (and even escape) actually makes my machine reboot itself. I have tried tapping shift in response, but the same outcome happens. Is there a workaround that can be used?

I also have this problem. I hold the SHIFT key (left and/or right) down on every boot. I have yet to see the boot menu.

Here is my hardware:

Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H
AMD 550 BE AM3
2x1GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3/1333
Avant Stellar keyboard (PS/2 connector)

Note this motherboard has built-in RADEON 4200 video.

Had the problem since 9.10. Still having it in 10.04, original first-day install ISO and all updates since then.

This bug made fixing X on 9.10 nearly impossible. I had to use a live boot disk to recover.

Oh, a suggestion. Stop fixing what isn't broken, (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, ESC on boot), and stop breaking what works (grub vs grub2).

On my PC holding down Shift only succeeds to show the grub menu about 1 in 10-20 attempts.

These are my settings (Lucid default):
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

If anyone has a Natty test install available, see if it's working now. It seems to be working fine with this current version for me:

1.99~20101210-1ubuntu2

This is still broken for me with Natty. If the grub2 menu is hidden then pressing shift does not show the menu as expected. Machine is a Dell Latitude E5510.

Related issue also observed here with 11.04 Natty (Kubuntu). Although grub menu is not set as hidden, but is should display always, sometimes only the background image is displayed (without menu entries), this happens about 40-50% of the time.

However, if during the boot only the grub2 background is displayed, pressing shift brings menu visible also, but *only* if shift-key is pressed within some amount of time (the menu hidden timeout value). Otherwise screen stays blank with the background image visible.

Observed on Lenovo T510. Upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04

I can't get it to show on 11.10, either.

Still present on Precise today. I'm on an Asus M4A78-EM and a PS/2-connected keyboard, if that matters.

Oh, but I couldn't reproduce it on a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M7400 laptop, so it seems to be hardware dependent.

Ah, it seems I am able to bring up the menu 100 % reliably on the M4A78-EM as well by hitting and holding the shift *immediately after firmware initialization screens* (Asus' boot graphic and ATA Security eXtension). So holding shift from power-up or from the boot graphic screen won't work in this setup, but seems to work with others (such as my FS laptop). I'd expect it to work from power-up consistently across different setups.

Encounter the same with a forgot-the-name desktop PC (Intel Core i3 530) on Precise. Even if I set GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=20 (plus update-grub), the boot continues without delay as if no hidden wait would happen. Neither SHIFT nor ESC makes a menu appear, and in the case of a non-zero hidden timeout neither any other key.

I returned to a GRUB_TIMEOUT=1 in order to be able to react in the case of a defect on Precise. This really works. Live CD also wouldn't help, as it comes with a not working nouveau graphical adapter, and only the alternate CD really starts.

<email address hidden>

Same here on Quantal Alpha 2...

Any progress on this bug?

This is grub bug someone forward this to grub authors!

http://askubuntu.com/questions/117525/hide-grub2-menu-unless-you-hold-down-shift-key-how-to-make-this-happen

Somehow even if HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is set to a positive value, "the" shiftkey (said to be only the right-shift !!!) is said to only work if there is also GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true

I'm going to come out and say "Me too", but with the adde bonus that it's a problem in 13.04 kubuntu - so obviously still around. (Yes, it has become a major issue for me, as the 3.7 kernel is broken and I can't boot into a working kernel... wonderful.)

I had the same problem - cant access to grub menu by esc or shift keys during boot if I tried to hide it (I have windows and ubuntu on one disk).

The reason is one strange condition in /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober script. it bloks hidden menu part of grub.cfg if os-probber found any other os.

So for me works the following:

1. In the file /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober
- comment line 33: if [ "x${found_other_os}" = "x" ] ; then
- and comment closing it "fi" at line 67

2. Sudo updade-grub

After that if you have GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT >=1 then you can access to grub menu by esc key during this timeout,
if you have GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT =0 then you can access to grub menu if you press "shift" during grub startup,
and no hidden menu if GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT =-1.

/etc/grub.d/30_os-prober does not exist on my 12.10 machine

it's /etc/grub.d/proxifiedScripts/os-prober on 13..04

after working with grub customizer

Same problem here.

* Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS

* Hardware:
 Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
 Product Name: HP Z220 SFF Workstation
 USB keyboard.

Still not fixed, I have same problem with Ubuntu 13.10, I installed 12 school computer for dualboot with Windows. Then I configured default entry to be Windows and GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 and was expecting that I can use Shift key to access grub menu but it does not work.
I tried ESC but it causes reboot.

On fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04.1: both shifts (holding or repeatedly pressed) do nothing --- system continues to boot.
Pressing "escape" just after GRUB is started presents menu, but this requires quite good timing (in contrast to just holding shift during computer boot).
If "escape" is pressed repeatedly, GRUB shell appears (as if you press "escape" in GRUB menu).

Damn I'm freaking out over this. Trying to fix new installation of 14.04.01 when fglrx driver did not switch backlight on and I can't get inside boot menu!!! Ubuntu, please stop making it impossible to fix mistakes even from your official repos.

Still a problem on 15.04 MSI UEFI hardware. Shift never works, though it has on *some* other computers.

I'd like to chip in here. Hardware is Thinkpad X220. Ubuntu 16.10 UEFI boot. Keyboard works fine when menu is visible, grub just fails to detect the desired keys in order to bring up the menu.

I'd like to chip in here. Hardware is Thinkpad X220. Ubuntu 16.10 UEFI boot. Keyboard works fine when menu is visible, grub just fails to detect the Shift keys in order to bring up the menu. Esc key works, though.

Hello everyone,

There is a bug report similar to this one on the Debian side:

    https://bugs.debian.org/902928

There, Colin Watson made an interesting comment:

> When I last looked into this, this wasn't possible with UEFI: the
> firmware doesn't tell us about held modifier keys. You'll probably need
> to use a short but non-zero timeout and press Escape instead.
>
> (It's possible that more recent versions of the UEFI spec have improved
> this; but if so then somebody would need to implement that in GRUB, and
> it would still only work if you had new enough firmware.)

So it would seem that the old way of bringing up the GRUB menu by holding down the Shift key just doesn't work in this brave new UEFI world anymore.

It would be interesting to hear if anyone is aware of a system that boots in UEFI mode and *does* respond to the held Shift key. Currently, I don't believe it's clear as to whether this is an architectural limitation of UEFI (i.e. it can't be fixed), or if newer UEFI firmware versions could potentially make held modifier keys usable.

I'm having the same issue, but I'm booting using Legacy/CSM mode on my Lenovo Thinkpad T430 running Ubuntu (MATE) 18.04.1.

Is #1258597 a duplicate of this one?

BTW am NON-Technical...

Am having similar/same problem with HP-ProBook-450-G3.

Am still learning ;-)

I believe this is intended behavior of GRUB on UEFI, and has been like this for years:

> "During boot, the system will check the SHIFT key status. If it cannot determine the key status, a short delay will enable the user to display the menu by pressing the ESC key."

As "cjwatson" said on the Debian #902928, I also don't believe UEFI allows us to easily check modifier state, as such I am not sure if any course of action is appropriate here.

Setting this to "Incomplete" to leave time for people to propose any action items, and downgrading severity to "Wishlist" (seems appropriate given this was open for 15 years).