Starting today, on each boot there is a non-interruptible long delay, apparently 2 minutes exactly. This started after shutting down computer normally, after having updated oneiric to the latest packages after yesterday.
I do not have a clue what's causing the actual problem, but changing the sleep 120 in /etc/init/failsafe.conf to sleep 1 makes everything work again without problems, and returning it to 120 brings the delay back to the boot.
From user point of view the problem is very worrying and confusing, since a) it happens also in the safe mode and b) it gives impression that either the computer or Ubuntu is simply broken, since also I didn't first wait for two full minutes of nothingness, especially since the problem also occurred in safe mode. I then (after noticing that actually the boot happens if I just wait long enough) started making a note about boot messages, and noted that the delay was slightly before AppArmor profiles loading and finally guessed to change the sleep value in /etc/init/failsafe.
Filing upstart bug mostly because for whatever real need the failsafe boot delay is there (I read a few mailing messages), this shouldn't be a possible behavior. Of course, the real root reason might be somewhere else that causes this to happen. I think I might have been noticed "doing nothing" already before the current value of 120 seconds that was changed a few days ago in upstart, but I'm not sure. This is a new laptop I just got and installed a fresh 64-bit beta 1 Oneiric.
As per lp:839595, commenting out /etc/network/