[syslinux] Strange behavior

[Roy Marantz]

I'm using syslinux 4.04 with dynamically generated menus configuration based
on info found in various web pages.  I'm doing my testing using a vCetner
4.10 Vmware virtual machine.  This works some of the time, but not always.
I just copied the prebuilt modules from the syslinux 4.04 distribution for
gpxelinx.0, menu.c32, reboot.c32, and pxelinux.0

When I boot a machine dhcpd says to boot gpxelinux.0 with
pxelinux.pathprefix "http://10.250.50.72/tftpboot/gpxe/" and
pxelinux.configfile "menu.pl" so that menu.pl generates the real
configuration information for the chain loaded pxelinux.0.

I see the startup messages from gpxelinux.0 and pxelinux 4.04, a message
saying that menu.pl was loaded OK, and the output of  a SAY statement in the
generated configuration.

In the generated configuration is a UI menu.c32 line and a few LABEL
stanzas.

I'm watching the logs from my apache server and see that sometimes it get
requests for loading /tftpboot/gpxe/menu.c32.0, /tftpboot/gpxe/menu.c32.com,
/tftpboot/gpxe/menu.c32.cbt, or /tftpboot/gpxe/menu.c32.c32 before aborting
and saying:
Could not find kernel image: menu.c32
I can work around that by creating /tftpboot/gpxe/menu.c32.c32 or putting
"UI menu" in the configuration file, but it still tries to load all the
other files first.

What might cause menu.c32.{0,com,cbt,c32} to be requested?

It seems to take a "long" time (say 30 seconds) between the time the SAY
messages shows up and the menu is displayed?  Why?  That seems to be when it
is trying to load all the difference menu.c32 files.

BTW, I have a LABEL setup to use reboot.c32 and while that causes the boot
process to restart, it only tries to load menu.0 and menu.com.  I'll worry
about this later thought.

Thanks for any help or ideas.
Roy