Failure to boot (out of memory) after first successful boot

[aliis.jh]

After a fresh Proxmox install completes, it fails to boot on subsequent restarts after the first restart (i.e. initial restart after installing works, all (most?) additional restarts fail to boot,) with the following error:

Loading Linux 6.8.4-2-pve
Loading initial ramdisk ...
error: out of memory.

Press any key to continue

(F8) BIOS Boot Selection shows two options:
- proxmox (Samsung NVMe)
- UEFI OS (Samsung NVMe)

When I select the UEFI OS option, Proxmox frequently boots with no issue. Sometimes it still fails and I get the same "error: out of memory."

I've tried all the 8.X installer ISOs. I've tried the three main media preparation tools for USB: ventoy, rufus, etcher.

All hardware has been replaced: CPU, memory (Memtested 48hrs+ old and new pairs,) NVMe, and the motherboard itself, all brand new with latest BIOS and firmware.

-- Hardware --
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z790-I Gaming WiFi (ITX) (latest BIOS with correct Intel power limits for i9 13th/14th gen)
CPU: i9-13900K and i9-14900K (stock, no overclock, forced to Intel safe L1/L2 power limits)
Memory: G.Skill 2x 32GB 6400 (F5-6400J3239G32GX2-TZ5RK, on Mobo's QVL/supported list)
Storage: 2x NVMe (4TB Samsung 990 Pro - latest firmware, 4TB Crucial)



FYIs:
- This is an ITX motherboard.
- I noticed over the multiple installs the dev paths for the two installed NVMe drives swap between `/dev/nvme0n1` and `/dev/nvme1n1`.
- This board uses some kind of adapter (not PCIe necessarily, manual says m.2_1 is still CPU direct connected and m.2_2 is PCH) for the NVMe drives with a heatsink shroud (screenshot attached)

For reference:
- This user is having exact same problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/Proxmox/comments/1dnxoxe/error_out_of_memory_after_swapping_motherboard/
- This was also discussed in the discord on #hardware if anyone wants to reference the troubleshooting

 

[aliis.jh]

Seems to be a GRUB memory issue related to iGPU for me. When I changed Advanced > System Agent (SA) Configuration > Graphics Configuration > DVMT Pre-Allocated from default of 64M to 32M, it fixed this initial "out of memory" issue with no other changes from default BIOS settings.

After this, I could boot from a "directly written" USB, i.e. using Rufus in dd mode or etcher, but NOT Ventoy. Any way I tried it, Ventoy would still result in the "out of memory" error.

This was also not specific to Proxmox. The same error resulted when trying to install Debian 12 directly. Again, using directly written USB, with either Proxmox or Debian 12, worked fine. Using Ventoy to do the same resulted in the "out of memory" error.

After a lot of searching, there appears to be some sort of memory issue with GRUB since back to 2022; many distros were having similar issues (e.g. Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.) I believe (don't know enough to confirm) that Ventoy just happens to exacerbate the problem maybe because it has it's own GRUB/bootloader, before launching the GRUB/bootloader of the install ISO. That seems to mess with or overload the memory for GRUB some how...

Maybe also worth noting: I saw on Ventoy Github Issues that using "grub2" mode when booting Proxmox/Debian installer ISO might be a fix. And, in some iteration it did allow installation media to boot and install. However, after the **2nd** reboot, it would always result in the "error: out of memory" message again. This is mentioned in linked post 386051 from Linux Mint below.

Also, I was using 4k monitor which some mentioned resulted in 4k GRUB resolution and impacting the memory some how. I tried using smaller monitor, setting GFXMODE=800x600 in GRUB by editing ISO bootloader using "e", AND even tried setting up a Ventoy theme with different resolutions, and none of that seemed to make a difference.

In the end, I'm fairly certain the issue isn't resolved, only avoided by the iGPU memory setting changed in BIOS. I'll also leave notes below regarding my environment incase someone in the future comes across this with a similar configuration.

GRUB Memory issue ref:
Main Issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/oem-priority/+bug/1842320/comments/125
Longer story: https://bugs.launchpad.net/oem-priority/+bug/1842320
More discussion: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=391965
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=386051
https://unix.stackexchange.com/ques...0-47-generic-error-out-of-memory-when-booting
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2229241#p2229241
https://bugs.launchpad.net/oem-priority/+bug/1842320/comments/17
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=388909
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1462928/out-of-memory-at-early-stage-of-boot
My Proxmox forum post: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/failure-to-boot-out-of-memory-after-first-successful-boot.154212/

-- Hardware --
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z790-I Gaming WiFi (ITX) (latest BIOS with correct Intel power limits for i9 13th/14th gen)
CPU: i9-13900K and i9-14900K (stock, no overclock, forced to Intel safe L1/L2 power limits)
Memory: G.Skill 2x 32GB 6400 (F5-6400J3239G32GX2-TZ5RK, on Mobo's QVL/supported list)
Storage: 2x NVMe (4TB Samsung 990 Pro - latest firmware, 4TB Crucial)
Monitor: 4k resolution (mentioned as contributing factor with GRUB resolution/error)

 

[Larstafari]

Just registered to report my findings here since i have been struggeling with aprox the same issue. (Though i am probably testing this out in much simpler HW.)
Proxmox just would not boot if i had IGD enabled or set to auto. It would only accept PEG, and nothing else. No amount of GRUB tinkering would get me through that point, so i figured the issue is likely to be related to how UEFI handles resource allocation for GPUs.

I then changed from UEFI to Legacy boot in BIOS, and it booted up straight away.


But this is just me posting another symptom, and not necessarily a sollution as such. Though In my case right now, i can work with it.

 

[Larstafari]

An update.
I did a (unfortunately long overdue) bios-update, and (i believe most importantly) reset bios to defaults and redid all settings.
After this, it accepted booting through UEFI with CSM off and Video set to "Auto". With no issues to report, all seems well now.