Slow boot - "a start job is running for dev-disk-by..."

Slow boot - "a start job is running for dev-disk-by..."

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I don't recall when the issue started to occur but it's likely when I moved my VMWare Ubuntu image to an external SSD so that I can use the OS on any of my PCs. There aren't many links on Google about the issue but the ones that appear talk about fstab. For example, Slow boot - What is "A start job is running for dev-disk-by..." ? - OpenSUSE Forum.

Mentions having to delete the swap partition and creating it again.

I can try to do this with Gparted but my main concern is losing my current set up in Ubuntu as I'm not entirely sure what will happen if I mess with swap as suggested in the thread. Anyone able to help?

• boot
• swap

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edited Dec 17, 2018 at 15:03

Kulfy

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asked Dec 18, 2015 at 20:45

cpd1

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•  
  You may want to clone your SSD and then you can knock yourself out :) (Try CloneZilla for this) 

  – Grammargeek

   Dec 18, 2015 at 20:51
•  
  Hah yeah, I guess I can do that. I'll wait till I'm back home from the holidays so I can move it to something where I have more space 

  – cpd1

   Dec 18, 2015 at 21:04
• 1
  I ended up fixing this. I don't think there was ever a swap if I go by Gparted. I ended up creating one and changing the entry in fstab. That worked and no more 90 second boot 

  – cpd1

   Dec 30, 2015 at 17:38
• 1
  if you solved your own problem, make your own answer and click the check to mark it as solved :) 

  – Grammargeek

   Dec 30, 2015 at 23:07
• 1
  Makes sense...I've added it 

  – cpd1

   Dec 31, 2015 at 1:56

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If you get

A start job is running for dev-disk-by...

followed by a 90 second delay during each boot, complete the following steps:

1. Install GParted using the Software Center

2. Open GParted and see what partitions Ubuntu is currently using

3. Edit the fstab file using the line below.

   sudo -H gedit /etc/fstab

4. If you have a device that you are not currently using, insert a # and a space at the beginning of that line comment it out.

5. If you have an external device configured to automount (usually with a nofail option in it), add this to the option to the device: x-systemd.device-timeout=1ms. This sets the wait time of the device to be mounted on boot time to 1ms of the default 90 seconds. Example:

/dev/sdg1        /media/backup    jfs    nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=1ms    0 0

6. Save the fstab file (it would be nice to save a backup beforehand). Test your fstab file by running mount -a. If any syntax error occurs, it would be shown by this command.

7. Reboot and the start job shouldn't appear again.