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    pfSense won't boot unless I manually interrupt the boot process and change the console to VGA

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      It probably is an efi console. What does the menu entry say?

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      • N
        nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10

        What menu entry do you mean?
        In the boot options or in the web GUI?

        I've tried using efi console, but it doesn't work.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          I mean what does menu option 5 in the loader show when you select it?

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          • S
            SeaMonkey @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 Thanks! I was suffering from the same issue.

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            • N
              nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10

              When it boots it's set to serial regardless of the settings I've played with in loader.conf.local or in the console settings in the GUI.
              I have to change that to video to be able to boot successfully.

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                So the menu shows option 5 as 'serial' and you press it to change to 'video' and then it boots correctly?

                What do you have in loader.conf and loader.conf.local?

                Steve

                N stephenw10S 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • N
                  nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10

                  loader.conf

                  kern.cam.boot_delay=10000
                  kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000"
                  kern.ipc.nmbjumbop="524288"
                  kern.ipc.nmbjumbo9="524288"
                  opensolaris_load="YES"
                  zfs_load="YES"
                  kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
                  kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
                  autoboot_delay="3"
                  hw.hn.vf_transparent="0"
                  hw.hn.use_if_start="1"
                  net.link.ifqmaxlen="128"
                  

                  There's no loader.conf.local at the moment.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @stephenw10
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 said in pfSense won't boot unless I manually interrupt the boot process and change the console to VGA:

                    So the menu shows option 5 as 'serial' and you press it to change to 'video' and then it boots correctly?

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                    • N
                      nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10

                      Correct

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Do you see a console type option in the gui in Sys > Advanced > Admin Access?

                        You may have initially installed from the memstick serial image accidentally.

                        Steve

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                        • N
                          nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10

                          I do, and I have tried selecting VGA console as primary but it doesn't take effect.

                          Yes this was my concern after having spent many hours troubleshooting and trying various things, so I downloaded and installed the VGA memstick image (triple checked), but there's no difference.

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Setting a value there should change what is in loader.conf, do you see that?

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                            • N
                              nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10

                              There's no difference in /boot/loader.conf when changing from VGA console to serial console (in System->
                              Advanced->Admin Access->Serial Communication) and back again.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by stephenw10

                                Hmm, check in /conf. Do you have an enableserial_force file?

                                If you do what exactly is that hardware?

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                                • N
                                  nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10

                                  There's no enableserial_force file in /conf.

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Hmm, setting that line to 'video' does exactly the same thing as using set console=vidconsole at the prompt. But you say only one of those things works which makes no sense.

                                    What other console options do you have there? Is it a UEFI BIOS?

                                    If it was booting as expected before losing power though it's possible you have some filesystem damage. The easiest thing here is [probably going to be reinstalling clean.

                                    Steve

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                                    • N
                                      nielsjlarsen @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10

                                      No other console options apart from serial and video.

                                      Yes it's an UEFI BIOS.

                                      This device has been running pfsense for a while and with earlier versions it worked fine after power loss. At some point after upgrading it broke. No idea in which version or when, but this is a clean 2.6 installation and it doesn't work for some reason.

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Hmm, how much older was the previous installation? It might have been installed, and therefore booting, legacy and now the clean install is UEFI and failing.
                                        You could try reinstalling as legacy BIOS.

                                        Steve

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