Linux Mint 21.3 GRUB does not show boot menu

[hikerpeter]

I installed Linux Mint MATE 21.3 next to Windows 10 (want dual boot) on an older laptop.
I started with a working Win10 installation and went through the standard installation process with Linux Mint.

After installation, my laptop ended up boot looping, so I manually selected GRUB UEFI file:

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/efi/ubuntu/grubx64.efi

to boot. This loads Linux Mint correctly, but does not show the menu.

I tried setting GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu and GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 so that the menu would be displayed.
I also set GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" just to make sure the beep confirms my new config is picked up properly.

This is what I have for GRUB config:

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$ cat /etc/default/grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT="0"
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL="console"

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE="640x480"

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID="true"

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER="false"

I reinstalled it via

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sudo update-grub

, this is the output:

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Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/50_linuxmint.cfg'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/init-select.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-91-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.15.0-91-generic
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/sda1@/efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done

After rebooting I can hear the beep, so I know the config is applied properly, but still,
no menu is shown. Which is quite strange, as I should have all the necessary menu entries in config:

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$ awk -F\' '/menuentry / {print $2}' /boot/grub/grub.cfg 
Linux Mint 21.3 MATE
Linux Mint 21.3 MATE, with Linux 5.15.0-91-generic
Linux Mint 21.3 MATE, with Linux 5.15.0-91-generic (recovery mode)
Windows Boot Manager (on /dev/sda1)
UEFI Firmware Settings

Can someone please help me?

[hikerpeter]

Apparently, GRUB graphical terminal failed to enter video mode, and waited with a black screen presented. After the timeout elapsed, it selected the default menu entry, that started Mint.

To fix this, what I had to do was to uncomment the following line,

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GRUB_TERMINAL="console"

and apply the update with

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sudo update-grub

Once done, GRUB startup menu loads properly in text mode, with all the desired menu entries.