HOWTO: failed to set xfermode [SOLVED]
UPDATE: thanks to a comment below from Ted, we now have a solution to have this option persist across kernel updates. In grub, “…at the end of this new menu item add it as an argument to the line:
defoptions=quiet splash irqpoll
I knew there had to be a way, thanks for the post Ted!
There’s a known bug in Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) with some ata detection routine that causes the system to take over 2 minutes to boot. Since this has happened to me more than once I’m documenting it here for me, and for other desperate souls that may find their way here. If your system is very slow to boot, and you see error messages in your dmesg (`dmesg | grep ata`) such as this:
[ 34.122465] ata1.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) [ 34.122519] ata1.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0×4) [ 34.122565] ata1: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs [ 46.260055] ata1: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0×90) [ 69.218482] ata1: port failed to respond (30 secs, Status 0×90)
You just need to ad `irqpoll` to your grub line. So in so in /boot/grub/menu.lst I added irqpoll to the kernel line:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=48c5a348-eb39-4171-8531-671a49fdb75b ro quiet splash irqpoll
and it fixes the issue. Probably a work around, but since this resets every time you install a new kernel you’ll realize when it’s broken and when it’s fixed. Oh, and my system boots in 21 seconds now…is it geeky that I know that, and I tweaked the system to make it boot faster than the 27 seconds it was booting in? I guess we’ll never know! 
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June 24th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Fantastic! Spent a week trying to figure out what the problem was and was considering reinstalling Ubuntu. Then having spent 2 days trying to back up everything in Wdoze I came across this. Problem solved in 30 seconds. This deserves the “Best Solution Of The Year Award”.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:10 am
@David Y
That’s great to hear! This is why I posted it too, since it happened to me again I had to look it up again, and I knew this was a widespread issue (why do the new kernels still have this bug?). I wanted to document it for my sanity, and title it in such a way that it would stand out when people do a Google search on it to help them out. Sure enough, a search on “failed to set xfermode” shows me on the first page, with the golden [SOVLED] in the title.
Enjoy, I can’t believe how much better Ubuntu gets every 6 months, and I’ve been using Linux for over 10 years now.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Thanks you, you’re awesome. I had installed everything and suddenly encountered this problem and then spent almost half a day trying to figure out what was wrong. At least the rescue mode is booting up now so I’m happy
July 4th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Hey! Thanks for the tip.
I was going nuts trying to fix this.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
This is helpful except for one problem in my case.
I see this problem come up when I’m booting into Ubuntu Linux. (This is from the hard drive, not from the CD.) Basically I’m left at a prompt that says “initramfs”
So when I go looking for /boot/grub and so forth, that path isn’t even there.
I guess the question would be: how can I update the grub line when I can’t get into anything that will let me do it?
July 5th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Jeff, you can edit your grub line before booting. Just press ‘e’ on grub.
Take a look at this article: http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/03/21/using-grub-to-overcome-boot-problems/
July 5th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Try that and let us know, I can grep some info off my box if needed. Speaking of, I updated the kernel last night, it did the whole nvidia headers too, so it’s updated, but I haven’t rebooted yet; I just set it to update and shutdown:
apt-get update; apt-get upgrade; /sbin/shutdown -h nowwill find out if we have the loooong boot tonight and post my grub.conf line.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Nice
and thankyou
July 28th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Thanks man! this is great. lots of searching around online and this is the place i found the answer.
Every time you update the kernel you will have the same problem because a new kernel line will be added to the grub menu (and used presumably). to make sure irqpoll is added at the end of this new menu item add it as an argument to the line:
# defoptions=quiet splash irqpoll
like so. while it’s fun to play with grub, it’s one hack i only want to do once!
Thanks again!
September 4th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Today I have faced the same problem. I have been using Ubuntu FF for about month and everything worked fine.
The problem was caused by CD-RW device, but it does not appear until I have removed CD from tray. When I have put CD back (audio, I do not know if the book type does matter) everything started to work again.
The CD was in the dev from the instalation up to today, so I have not noticed the problem before.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
@Byte
Strange, I haven’t had that, in fact today booting for the first time in awhile I found that I had the failed to set xfermode again, this time using the latest kernel, 2.6.20-16-generic! This time I used Ned’s suggestion from above:
# defoptions=quiet splash irqpoll
so hopefully I won’t see this issue again - I’ll keep you informed here.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Thanks so much! Works like a champ!!
September 18th, 2007 at 1:57 am
This solution is not for fedora 7 is it??
What can i do to resolve this issue?
September 21st, 2007 at 9:14 am
Thanks. This worked for me with a Dell Vistro 400 system too with FC7 (Fedora Core 7).
October 1st, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Great, glad to hear it’s working for you on FC7! I’m about ready to get a new Dell Vostro 1500, and am looking forward to seeing how Debian or Ubuntu acts on it.
October 8th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Well… What is interesting is that with irqpoll you can do the FC7 install with xen. The xen kernel will then boot and work just fine without irqpoll and I had to compile the e1000 driver from sourceforge for the e1000 driver to detect the network card. The network card works just fine with the new driver and without irqpoll in the xen kernel.
If you decide to go back to the regular kernel though you must use irqpoll again. The problem now is that irqpoll might be causing a problem with the network driver. The network card only works for a short period of time. The e1000 debug does not display anything either.
I will probably just throw a different ethernet card in the system and be done with it.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
That was awesome. I had same problem today with the newly released Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu 7.10). I had almost given up on using it because I never reached till the login screen. Adding irqpoll in the grub menu was all that was needed. Thanks a lot.
October 19th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
So i added this to grub and it worked, for the initial boot! Subsequent boots still had the error….please help!
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
@Ando
Did you add it to file:
/boot/grub/menu.lst
Put it in there at the end of the line of the kernel you’re running; or put it in the default options section in the bottom.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Thanks! This had me defeated - was about to abandon Ubuntu! BTW the problem was with 7.10 on a Dell Vostro 200 with SATA drive. The problem is something drive related I suppose.. I can now dual boot with Vista and with XP (different machines). Thanks again!!
January 30th, 2008 at 8:37 am
@norman
It really had me banging my head against the wall, so when I solved it I knew there were/would be others out there that would come across it, so I’m happy to hear that it helped you too. I would like a more centralized place where you could search for Linux/Tech errors and their solutions, I keep waiting for Splunk to be that, but until then, I’m glad Google indexes things so well.
Incidentally, I’m impressed with the whole Vostro line from Dell, it strips away much of the ‘bling’ that most systems have, and trades it for usable/basic systems (not to mention looses the bloat of all the crippling ‘trialware’ that Dell usually distributes). I have the Vostro 1500 as my main system running Ubuntu currently, and am very happy with it: http://www.fak3r.com/2007/10/10/buying-a-linux-laptop-in-2007/ - it never had the ‘failed to set xfer mode’ issue, so I suspect you’re correct, it’s some kernel/hardware incompatibility; luck of the draw as it were.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Does anyone know if a kernel patch or the latest kernel resolves this problem ?
March 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Thanks for that solution, works fine on my Dell Vostro 200ST.
I think my problem came from the DVD player…
But I have a question : what is the consequence of adding “irqpoll” to the line ? Won’t it create any problem, or ignore some mistake ?
I’m not an expert in Linux (and english), but just try to understand… thank you
March 20th, 2008 at 8:11 am
@Kiv
“what is the consequence of adding “irqpoll” to the line ? Won’t it create any problem, or ignore some mistake ?”
AFAIK, no - and I haven’t heard differently. Still, what are you running? I did not have this issue with the latest (7.10) Ubuntu (fully up to date), or on Debian 4.0 (Etch) on systems at home. Are you still seeing this? I’ve been meaning to update my Ubuntu to the 8.40 - but haven’t yet. I want to do clean install on my laptop (this one: http://www.fak3r.com/2007/10/10/buying-a-linux-laptop-in-2007/) and see if I get the dreaded ‘xfermode’ issue, I hope (suspect?) it’s fixed by now. We’ll see.