Bug#778810: Bug reappeared in Buster, severity critical

[Frode Severin Hatlevik]

This issue, or a similar one, seems to have reappeared in Buster.

My system is a HP ProBook 650. I installed Stretch a while ago, and then
upgraded to Buster as per instructions on Debian website.

After a while and a few security upgrades the system was unable to boot,
spewing out
error: symbol `grub_calloc´ not found.
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue>

I am not very proficient in grub rescue commands, and felt quite lost.

After a bit of tinkering I found this workaround:
The laptop has a "Boot from EFI file" option in "Boot devices" menu in BIOS.
Navigating to and selecting [efi partition]/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi booted
Grub just fine.

After a while I got fed up doing this on every cold boot.
Then, out of curiosity, I tried selecting [efi
partition]/EFI/boot/BOOTX64.EFI from the "Boot devices" menu in BIOS.
The same Grub error resulted, i.e:
error: symbol `grub_calloc´ not found.
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue>

Then I booted the system again, backed up /boot/efi/EFI/boot/BOOTX64.EFI
and replaced it with /boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi and rebooted again.
Hey Presto! The boot problem vanished.

If I remove BOOTX64.EFI from /boot/efi/EFI/boot altogether, I get a "Boot
device not found" error from BIOS on boot.

I hope this helps in correcting this situation.

Regards
;)Frode

-- 
Da sa Gud: "Det bli lys!"
Og det ble lys.
                      1. Mosebok 1.3

And God said, "Let there be light,"
and there was light.
                      Genesis 1:3, NIV
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