Slow booting to rEFInd (not to OS)

[Victor]

I using last version of rEFInd on Debian 12.
Booting from post to the rEFInd's menu about 15 seconds.
I tried to disable some volumes, but nothing changed.
After enabling verbose log I saw many strings in the log file

Error retrieving EFI variable 'HiddenTools'

I tried to create empty file 'HiddenTools' in vars, error gone, but booting still slow.

[dakanji]

One log file shows
from
11:37:51 - rEFInd 0.14.0 built with TianoCore EDK2
to
11:38:10 - Entering RunMainMenu()
which is 19 Secs

Other log file shows
from
11:50:31 - rEFInd 0.14.0 built with TianoCore EDK2
to
11:50:50 - Entering RunMainMenu()
which is 19 Secs

19 Secs is not unheard of

Main items affecting load speed are:
Loading with any external disk present ... (external slow, internal fast)
Loading from ESP on external disk (compounds item above)
Loading with any HDD present ... (HDD slow, SSD fast)
Loading from ESP on HDD (compounds item above)
Loading with several volumes present

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, can you temporarily replace your rEFInd efi file with one from RefindPlus (with everything else the same) and share the log to compare the speeds?

You can get RefindPlus here: https://github.com/dakanji/RefindPlus/releases
Rename the RefindPlus efi file to match the rEFInd one.
Use the DBG binary to get a log file.

[Victor]

@dakanji Thanks for reply!
Log in attach

[dakanji]

[dakanji]

Forum does not link a link to the rEFInd website .... bizarre

Anyway, RefindPlus loads in about 10.5 Secs:

From:

0:0000 0:0000 I N I T I A T E ...

To:

10:4935 0:0972 Configured Default ...

Not an Apples/Apples comparison as logging is different and this has a big impact.
You can reverse the change. Thanks.

To improve speed in general, you will need to take a look at the items mentioned earlier and you also need to optimise your config. There are tips on the rEFInd project website at rodsbooks.com/refind/using.html#delays (Had to avoid putting a link to beat the spam catcher)

1. You have tools such as UEFI Shell, GDisk, Recovery etc that set to be searched for that are not present and time is wasted looking for them
2. You have inactive manual stanzas that are processed anyway. This wastes time ... more so on rEFInd. Remove them or remove "external" from the "scanfor" config setting. You might want to remove "Optical" as well
3. Not sure what "internal #" is in the scanfor list
4. Disable logging for day to day use

[Victor]

@dakanji thanks!
I will try.