pfSense will not boot

SteveITS

@gregeeh What was the new hardware?

re: Bandwidthd, I have had issues in recent years where reboots and/or pfSense upgrades (which is basically when it boots) don't keep the stats, despite the option being checked in the package to save them to disk.

Did you uncheck "Skip RRD data" when making the backup? Oh it was an auto config backup, not sure if that has RRD if the option defaults to checked/skip.

gregeeh

@steveits said in pfSense will not boot:

What was the new hardware?

A new Switch

@steveits said in pfSense will not boot:

Did you uncheck "Skip RRD data"

That option is not available in Auto Config Backup.

JKnott

@gregeeh said in pfSense will not boot:

@steveits said in pfSense will not boot:

What was the new hardware?

A new Switch

That shouldn't have required a reboot. From your description, I got the impression you added hardware to the PC. However, that would be a good place to start. Last year, my old pfSense system wouldn't boot. It turned out to be a mom board failure, so I replaced that computer with the one described in my sig.

stephenw10

@gregeeh said in pfSense will not boot:

can't find /boot/entropy
can't find /etc/hostid

Those are expected during a normal boot, it does not indicate a boot problem.

However the fact you are seeing them indicates it's not showing much (anything?) past that.
Often that's because it's set to use the wrong console type. Those messages are one of the last things you see before it sets the console so if you're looking at a video console and it's configured as serial that's what you see.

Steve

gregeeh

@stephenw10 said in pfSense will not boot:

However the fact you are seeing them indicates it's not showing much (anything?) past that.
Often that's because it's set to use the wrong console type. Those messages are one of the last things you see before it sets the console so if you're looking at a video console and it's configured as serial that's what you see.

Could well be the wrong console as it normally runs headless. So how could I have got it to boot with my monitor plugged into the HDMI port? Would be helpful for next time, thanks.

EDIT: So this is normal if configured for the wrong console and will stop it booting.

stephenw10

Yup, probably trying to use a different console.
You can force it to use the video console from the loader menu or prompt but it looks like it's already set to video from that photo.
It might need to be using the efi console. Is it booting uefi?

Steve

gregeeh

@stephenw10 - Thanks for the reply Steve. As I said in the first post, I was in a hurry to get this fixed so I just re-installed. I'm just trying to find out why it would change after several years untouched and if it happens again how do I fix it without doing a re-install.

Greg

stephenw10

Was it running 2.6? When was it last rebooted?

I agree I would expect anything to have changed unless something set specifically. If it was a much older install that has been upgraded across several versions it might now be installed differently. UEFI vs Legacy boot for example.

gregeeh

@stephenw10 - Yes it was already running 2.6. I just shut it down via the pfSense menu (Halt). Then disconnected the power, physically moved around the location of a few items so I could fit in the new Switch and then powered everything back up.

I then noticed there was no internet connection on any devices and I could not ping anything (No DHCP Server). So I connected my PC directly to the pfSense box, changed my IP manually to be in the same subnet and still could not ping pfSense. Connected a monitor and found it not booting.

All very weird. Maybe the pfSense box is on the way out, I don't know, it's 5 years old.

Thoughts?

Greg

stephenw10

If it had been upgraded from, for example, a 2.3 install originally it would be been booting legacy and a fresh install would probably be uefi.
If you have not connected to the console recently it might have been appearing to stall there for some time but just booting without a console. Now there is an issue but you just couldn't see it.

But that's something of a guess!

Steve

gregeeh

@stephenw10 - Your assumption is probably correct, the original install would have been done 5 years ago with whatever version was current at the time. And, I have not connected a monitor to it since. I also re-installed using the UEFI option and that's what it is in now.

Still does not explain why it never booted after being shutdown. Guess we will never know, but thanks again for all your input and time.

Greg