Is this related to https://www.netgate.com/docs/pfsense/install/upgrade-guide.html#upgrading-from-versions-older-than-pfsense-2-4-4 : "Gateway handling changes in 2.4.4 may result in different default gateway behavior than previous releases. Nearly all cases should behave properly, but be aware that it may be necessary to re-select the default gateway after upgrade."
See here :
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/138343/2-4-4-2-4-4-p1-unexpected-operator
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/138330/pfsense-2-4-4-release-p1-is-now-available/12
After spending time on this that I'd rather have back, I found that the root cause could have been any one or all of the widgets on the dashboard. After removing all the widgets on the source host and then redeploying the "All" configuration on the new host, the issue went away. The crash seemed to be triggered by clicking any link on the UI while the dashboard was present.
Reinstalled 2.4.4_1 and after a 2-3 reboot, I had to restart Unbound and Dpinger to get some log in the Status / System Logs / System tab
NTP was logging fine.
On Friday night 11/30 around 10-11 pm US Central time, checking for updates was slow and downloading the updates took a long time and failed frequently. I was able to restart it, but eventually walked away, and found a couple hours later that the check for updates and the downloads were normal speed. So I think it was on Netgate's end?
When importing/restoring the config file it should ask you to set up the new interfaces. Or you can edit the XML file before restoring. The restore will install any packages it needs.
This doesn't really help this time, but next time it might be informational to save the non-working config file first, and compare it to the saved one.
There is no factory default button on the XG-1537.
It is a hardware reset button.
To factory default you can use Diagnostics > Factory Defaults in the web gui, boot to the console menu and use menu option 4, or boot from a USB installer and completely reinstall from that.
I installed 2.4.4p1 without a hitch. There were some errors, but every thing seemed to come up. The cli command for the barnyard2 was not necessary for me :)
Best practice is to use a subdomain of your TLD. So if you own domain.com, then use home.domain.com or lan.domain.com. It saves you from having to maintain split DNS.
Even better : access the console !
If memory serves me well, a Link Up (and down) event is signaled as soon as you hook up a cable - and unhook.
It will mention which interface it is.
The crash report shows a file system error that would be independent of the loaded config.
You can probably recover that by booting into single user mode and running fsck -y / a few times or you could just re-install 2.4.4p1 clean again.
Usually that happens because of some power interruption during a filesystem write.
