Headless booting timeout not working

[Chase]

Rod,
First, thanks for making this fantastic loader! I used to use it all of the time when I had an iMac to better switch between Mac OS X and Windows 8. I am decently familiar with this boot loader, but not as familiar as I am with Clover.

Due to me running a Hackintosh with an unsupported AMD card, I have to enable the integrated GPU to boot as primary which prevents me from seeing any screen until the desktop on either Windows or macOS is loaded. I have turned to rEFInd because unlike Clover, I can simply hold down ‘w’ to boot Windows instead of trying to time the key press with Clover.

However, I have a weird issue now - This dual bootloader system -

rEFInd -> Clover -> macOS
-> Windows

Does not timeout properly when there is no monitor plugged into the integrated graphics port. I tested it 20 times and isolated rEFInd to be the culprit. When I hear the computer spin down after rEFInd has loaded, hitting ‘c’ boots clover, ‘w’ boots windows, and just hitting ‘enter’ boots clover as expected since it is the default.

When a monitor is plugged in, everything works as expected. I have tried many options - using text mode, changing timeouts, changing default to windows, etc. to no avail. I am at a loss, and I was hoping that you’d be able to shed some light on what I might be doing wrong.

Below are the options I have enabled in my refind.conf. My system runs on a UEFI Z170 board with CSM enabled by necessity.

timeout -1
resolution 3840 2160
scanfor manual
default_selection "Sierra"

menuentry "Sierra" {
icon EFI/refind/icons/os_clover.png
volume 8FBCE24F-AAB0-4367-B406-E365197635D1
loader /EFI/Clover/CLOVERX64.efi
}

menuentry "Windows 10" {
icon /EFI/refind/icons/os_win8.png
volume 5E77DCB7-685F-4485-905A-396E54BED05C
loader \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
}

[Roderick W. Smith]

Try removing the resolution 3840 2160 line. If you try to tell rEFInd to adjust the screen resolution and it can't, it displays a warning message about this and waits for keyboard input. My hunch is that this is what's happening to you; since no monitor is connected, I suspect that the EFI can't comply with that request, thus triggering a pause.

[Chase]

Works like a charm now! Thanks for the quick reply! leaving both as text only interfaces make the loading time virtually nothing as well.