I have had a problem twice now.
First, when I open up my laptop, I am unable to authenticate. The screen says “Authentication failed” and that is flickering, as if constantly refreshing. And there is a square cursor on the screen which I can move around but it does not let me type anything.
Then I power down and power up and the OS cannot find a disk from which to boot.
Both times I power down, wait at least several minutes (not less), and then everything comes up fine. And the logs that I have been able to check show no disk failures.
Obviously I need to make sure my backups are up to date.
But what else can I do? Which logs might show me what the problem is? Has anyone seen this kind of issue?
I will be sending a note to support, also, but sometimes that leads to a productive exhange of information and sometimes it does not.
Any suggestions? System details below. Sorry if I have selected the wrong tag above. It is not obvious from the system info which option to pick.
System Details Report
- Date generated: 2025-05-16 10:20:16
Hardware Information:
- Hardware Model: Framework Laptop 13th Gen Intel Core
- Memory: 32.0 GiB
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1340P × 16
- Graphics: Intel® Graphics (RPL-P)
- Disk Capacity: 1.0 TB
Software Information:
- Firmware Version: 03.04
- OS Name: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
- OS Build: (null)
- OS Type: 64-bit
- GNOME Version: 46
- Windowing System: Wayland
- Kernel Version: Linux 6.11.0-25-generic
I would check all the partitions with fsck. Second step - check SMART info, maybe there are some hints there…
I had looked at the smart info. I will include the results here but the take-away is where it says: “No Errors Logged”.
# smartctl --all /dev/nvme0
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.11.0-25-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: Samsung SSD 990 EVO 1TB
Serial Number: S7M3NL0X909209R
Firmware Version: 0B2QKXJ7
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x144d
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x002538
Total NVM Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0
Controller ID: 1
NVMe Version: 2.0
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Namespace 1 Utilization: 450,909,331,456 [450 GB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 002538 2941a023f7
Local Time is: Fri May 16 12:46:22 2025 PDT
Firmware Updates (0x16): 3 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017): Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x00df): Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp Verify
Log Page Attributes (0x2f): S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg Ext_Get_Lg Telmtry_Lg Log0_FISE_MI
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 128 Pages
Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 85 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 85 Celsius
Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 7.47W - - 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 + 7.47W - - 1 1 1 1 500 500
2 + 7.47W - - 2 2 2 2 1100 3600
3 - 0.0800W - - 3 3 3 3 3700 2400
4 - 0.0070W - - 4 4 4 4 3700 45000
Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf
0 + 512 0 0
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 38 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 2%
Data Units Read: 4,167,521 [2.13 TB]
Data Units Written: 22,251,512 [11.3 TB]
Host Read Commands: 36,419,617
Host Write Commands: 543,523,903
Controller Busy Time: 11,530
Power Cycles: 121
Power On Hours: 3,520
Unsafe Shutdowns: 38
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Temperature Sensor 1: 45 Celsius
Temperature Sensor 2: 38 Celsius
Thermal Temp. 1 Transition Count: 52
Thermal Temp. 1 Total Time: 79
Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 64 entries)
No Errors Logged
Self-test Log (NVMe Log 0x06)
Self-test status: No self-test in progress
No Self-tests Logged
There are no errors.
On the grub- boot screen, boot an alternative kernel (old one).
If the screen still flickers at the login screen, got down to the console with: --F4
Hit enter a few times so systemd spawn a console and log in.
Once logged in, issue a:
“sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade”
to apply all system updates, reboot, and try again.
If that still does not work, Boot into an old kernel in the grub advanced options.
I had a similar problem with a PC, not a Framework, where the hard disk would disappear and then reappear. Also other strange symptoms. Turned out to be a failing CMOS battery. Once I replaced it, problems went away.
Hugh