AMI Image stuck at boot

Question

This is Ubuntu 14.04 image with generic kernel 3.13 and nvidia driver '550.127', it stuck at the boot step until it timeout, the AMI is not created.

Is there a way to check the boot logs to see the root cause of the issue?

```
# aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks --filters "Name=task-state,Values=active"
{
    "ImportImageTasks": [
        {
            "Architecture": "x86_64",
            "ImageId": "",
            "ImportTaskId": "import-ami-22c32d7544924305t",
            "LicenseType": "BYOL",
            "Platform": "Linux",
            "Progress": "62",
            "SnapshotDetails": [
                {
                    "DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
                    "DiskImageSize": 137438953472.0,
                    "Format": "RAW",
                    "Status": "completed",
                    "UserBucket": {
                        "S3Bucket": "mybucket",
                        "S3Key": "disk.img"
                    }
                }
            ],
            "Status": "active",
            "StatusMessage": "booting",
            "Tags": []
        }
    ]
}

```

re:Post Agent · Answer

It sounds like you're experiencing an issue with an Ubuntu 14.04 AMI that's getting stuck during the boot process. Since this is happening during the import process (as shown by your describe-import-image-tasks output), there are a few approaches you can take to diagnose the problem.

For an AMI that's stuck at boot, the most likely causes are kernel issues, device driver problems (possibly related to your NVIDIA driver), or file system errors. The fact that you're using an older Ubuntu version (14.04) with kernel 3.13 might be contributing to compatibility issues.

To troubleshoot this:

1. If the import process completes and creates an AMI, you can launch an instance from it and use the EC2 Serial Console to view boot logs and diagnose the issue.

2. If the AMI is already created but instances launched from it fail status checks, you can:
- Take a snapshot of the EBS volume
- Mount this volume to a rescue instance (another working Linux instance)
- Examine logs in /var/log/ directory, particularly boot.log, dmesg, and syslog
- Check the GRUB configuration in /boot/grub/

3. For kernel-related issues (which is likely with your older kernel):
- If it's an EBS-backed instance: Stop the instance, replace with a working kernel, install a fallback kernel, and modify the AMI by correcting the kernel
- If it's an instance store-backed: You'll need to terminate the instance and launch a new one with the correct kernel

The NVIDIA driver (550.127) might be incompatible with your kernel version. You might need to modify the AMI to use a compatible driver version or the open-source Nouveau driver temporarily to get the system booting.

Since you're importing this AMI, consider updating to a more recent Ubuntu version with better AWS compatibility, as Ubuntu 14.04 is quite old and may have various compatibility issues with modern EC2 infrastructure.  
**Sources**  
[Troubleshoot Amazon EC2 Linux instances with failed status checks - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/TroubleshootingInstances.html)  
[EC2 Amazon Linux Stuck in Grub boot loader after reboot | AWS re:Post](https://repost.aws/questions/QUAqFbHrmWQniRVEZQ4ERRrg/ec2-amazon-linux-stuck-in-grub-boot-loader-after-reboot)

AMI Image stuck at boot

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