Exact same experience: "failed" on the download first time. The second time worked perfectly. The reboot time was around 10 minutes, maybe a bit more.

Thanks for the posts, I did notice that on my machine I needed to install the kernel afterwards. Running the normal update from the console fixed that.

Fresh install worked perfect, thank you

That must be an outdated copy of /usr/local/lib/php/20131226/zmq.so being referenced because it doesn't use that library any longer. And the pkg errors indicate that it can't lookup and DNS requests. The fastest method of recovery is a fresh installation if you can, then use the 'recover config.xml' option in the installer and it will read your current config in before wiping the drive and reinstalling, you'll boot back up good as new.

Sorry, just found https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=137938.0

Update:  I gave up trying to fix this and just chalked this up to a bad snapshot from 10/8.  I did a reinstall with the 10/9 snapshot, and things are back to normal.

ALRIGHT. So I returned the Quad Port Intel Gigabit NIC and am now using two dual port gigabit Intel NIC's with the new version of pfSense 2.4.0 . This appears to be running successfully now. I have tested it with the same load I placed against the previous build with the different NIC and it has not rebooted once yet. The Dual port NIC I got is the Intel PRO/1000 Py Dual Port Server Adapter. I will provide an update if the issue re-occurs but we appear to be running smoothly now.

@jimp: No, it is most likely too damaged to correct. Reinstall and use the "recover config.xml" option on the first screen of the installer to get your current config back. You'll be up and running in only a few moments. when i did the pkg-static update –f it all happend but i forgot to do  pkg-static upgrade –f  i cant remember if i saw that somewhere. After that was done i did the pfsense-upgrade and it all updated correctly. Didn't have to reinstall. only had to do the reinstall packaged from the Gui otherwise i would not access the addons via the Menu.

No. https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/7029

Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU 1403 @ 2.60GHz 2 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 2 core(s) 16304 MiB

@chpalmer: Plug its WAN port into your network. And…. Thanks a lot! it works! right now atleast.  ::)  :-[ How easy was that….... why was I breaking my head all day?... and why didn't tech support just tell me to, I asked specifically if I could not just do that.

Perfect! I had assumed that since I saw newer versions that they should show up via the update feature, but it makes sense that the functionality has been suspended till release. Thanks for the explanation.