I just wanted to finish up this story for anybody who found it because they are in the same predicament. I never found a way to rescue the half-upgraded installation, but I did manage to dump config.xml over my serial console. Ultimately I downloaded the latest usb stick image with serial console, booted from it, and did a reinstall (over my serial console). The install was fast, upgraded the whole thing to ZFS, and - much to my surprise - found and used my existing config.xml I instructed the machine to reboot and again, was extremely surprised to find that my relatively complex configuration was back up and working with no more intervention. I logged into the web interface and found a message saying packages were being automatically installed, and not to change anything in the GUI and that was it. I'm very impressed at what was a particularly easy and intuitive experience. Thanks for anyone who offered help!

@SteveITS Yep, I saw that. Me and the paper clip were busy. Didn't work though.

You can restore a 22.9 config into 2.7.1 or 23.09. In general you can always restore an older config into a newer pfSense version.

@Robert42 I've also been hit with the same boot issue you describe

Yes, without the console output after the first reboot it's really hard to know exactly what happened. The getty output could be related but it could also just be from filesystem damage.

That's expected if the NDI is staill eligible for Plus, which it would be if you were previously on 23.05. https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/15019 Steve

@CrKlom said in Netgate SG 4100: @stephenw10 If anyone knows a good m2 ssd B or M key make and model for the SG-4100 please let me know I have been using WD SN520, no problems to report.

@sae did you see this? https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/releases/2-7-1.html#troubleshooting

Ok, I don't expect 2.7.1 to be any different but the line numbers in the php error might have changed.

@mcpfl Move away from UFS. I did that as soon as ZFS came out as I was TIRED of having to fsck the "Firewall", every time the power went out. (and/or the UPS was weak, or the communication to the UPS usb had failed). Reinstall on different system/media and use ZFS instead.

It won't cause any issues uninstalling that. But I wouldn't expect either of those to be an issue during upgrade anyway. Steve

@stephenw10 said in Not booting after upgrade or clean install to CE 2.7.1: Does it support legacy (BIOS) install rather than UEFI? That would likely boot fine. Unfortunately there is no CSM options in the BIOS. Only UEFI is available. I would be thankful for an advice on how to troublshoot the UEFI boot. For some reason only booting with Verbose-ON works. I do not know what does it change, but it somehow works. I do not think it's a hardware incompatibility, because otherwise it would not boot at all. If there is no solution and nobody can check the bug in CE 2.7.1 installation it makes no sense to continue chatting. It does not even make sense to think abou upgrading to Plus version. Thanks for your efforts

Yes, I would also recommend backing up the config and reinstalling as ZFS. It's the simplest way to get to 23.09 that guarantees the system will be in a clean state. And you will then be on ZFS. It can probably be recovered but there would be at least some diagnostic commands needed to see exactly why it's failing. Steve

@stephenw10 thanks for your sharing, bro. this machine, i just had one version upgrade from 2.6 - 2.7 by uninstalling all packages so this time i will try without installing as yours the sokeada

@jimp said in Netgate 2100 - Update from 23.05.1 to 23.09: Firewall will not boot: Curious that you saw partial output -- that's usually what happens if two separate processes are attached to the serial port at the same time. They'll each see ~half the output and input won't work properly. Maybe you'd attached a screen to the terminal already and detached (not quit)? Hard to say. That sounds very plausible. I might have attached multiple processes like you say. Maybe the guide at https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/netgate-2100/connect-to-console.html should warn against this? I feel like it's a pitfall for people like me that are not very familiar with the sceen command.

Of the log? The most useful way would be to add the log text directly by copy/pasting it from the serial console if you can. Adding a link to pastebin or similar would also work.

@CC88 Backup files can be restored to a later version. https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/backup/restore-different-version.html

@stephenw10 Actually, I believe the update somehow only was partially applied. TAC sent me a link to firmware I could install from the console / USB stick, and I did this, and all is well and good now. Thanks everyone!

You need to go through 2.7.0 because that was the first version to include the dynamic pkg repos.