Comment 4 for bug 642555

runlevel is N 2.

I've tried the --verbose boot param in grub, haven't tried the text at the beginning of the line.

I've commented out "console output" in all /etc/init/*.conf files.

I've tried editing /etc/init/rc-sysinit.conf, changing:
"start on filesystem and net-device-up IFACE=lo"
to this:
"start on filesystem and started rsyslog and net-device-up IFACE=lo"

I've also tried:
sudo apt-get install ifupdown --reinstall --purge

(These last two were suggested here http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9480172&postcount=20, which was linked as a suggested workaround in the bug 554172 comments).

As mentioned, also updated to the version of upstart that supposedly fixed this craziness, but alas, it didn't resolve the issue for me.