After upgrading to the latest 2.7 DEV the main web page is blank

[D a l]

@d-a-l
If I SSH into to FW and choose option 12) PHP shell + pfSense tools and type in:

pfSense shell: resetwebgui
pfSense shell: exec

It produces an error. Could it be related?

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected end of file in /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php(374) : eval()'d code on line 6

[bmeeks]

These issues would indicate either a failed-to-complete upgrade attempt, or something is going wrong with the physical disk media. The "unexpected end of file" error screams corrupt file.

If you have console access and/or SSH access, grab a copy of the config.xml file from /cf/conf and save it off the box (or, if you have Automatic Config Backup enabled, you can use that during the reinstall).

Download a fresh pfSense DEVEL snapshot and reinstall from scratch importing the old config.xml (or restoring it from ACB if you had that enabled).

[D a l]

@bmeeks
Thanks for answering.
Not exactly the answer I was hoping for, though. That's what we get for living on the edge I guess.
Will the config.xml file restore everything?
I remember having a hard time setting up the lagg interface and place VLANs on top of that.

Thanks

[bmeeks]

@d-a-l said in After upgrading to the latest 2.7 DEV the main web page is blank:

@bmeeks
Thanks for answering.
Not exactly the answer I was hoping for, though. That's what we get for living on the edge I guess.
Will the config.xml file restore everything?
I remember having a hard time setting up the lagg interface and place VLANs on top of that.

Thanks

Yes, providing you have a recent backup that includes that configuration (or hopefully you can recover the actual config.xml file directly from the firewall before reinstalling).

And, yes, using the DEVEL snapshots means putting up with breakage from time to time. That's why it's really not suitable for a production setup or even for a critical home setup. Best to play with DEVEL if you have a VM setup where you can instantly rollback to a previous snapshot. That assumes you take a snapshot before doing anything major when running pfSense as a virtual machine.

[D a l]

@bmeeks Thanks.
Will try this tomorrow.
The actual file from the FW is backed up and good to go

[D a l]

@bmeeks
Hi again. I've done some more testing on this

I probably need to tell the whole story here:
It all started when I did an upgrade from the 20220729-0600 build to the 20220922-1830 build I think it was.
It failed to boot until I changed kernel in the startup.
After that, the server booted, but no web page anymore.

And now I can't even boot from the DEV ISO's located here

But if I try to boot from the STABLE v.2.6. ISO, it seems to make it all the way to where the actual installation starts.

This is why I think it must be something implemented in the latest DEV builds that causes the server to crash.

Rolling back to an older BIOS does not help either

I would love to try to go back to the 20220729-0600 BUILD / ISO, but that file is not located on the download page any more. If anyone has a link to it, it would be much appreciated.

The 2 exact error messages from the DELL DRAC are:
System BIOS has halted and is unable to continue.
A CPU invalid opcode exception (type 0x06) occurred in the pre-boot UEFI environment. The software attempted to execute invalid code.

[bmeeks]

System BIOS has halted and is unable to continue.
A CPU invalid opcode exception (type 0x06) occurred in the pre-boot UEFI environment. The software attempted to execute invalid code.

That's an ominous sounding error ...

I'm tagging @stephenw10 here because he is the hardware expert. Hopefully he will get notice of being mentioned in this thread and chime in.

[stephenw10]

Mmm, that's not something I've seen before. There is some work happening with the UEFI loader currently though so it's possible that has affected it.

I assume 2.6 installs and boots as expected on this hardware?

Steve

[D a l]

@stephenw10 yes, 2.6 seems to work fine

[stephenw10]

What did you change the kernel to when it initially failed to boot after upgrade?

If it loaded the kernel from the earlier FreeBSD 12 based snapshot it's not surprising that a lot of things didn't run correctly.

Where does it actually stop when you try to boot a current 2.7 snap?

[D a l]

@stephenw10
When I first upgraded to 20220922-1830 and it failed, I changed the kernel at the pfSense boot menu from kernel 1 to kernel 2 (the older kernel I guess), and then it booted. But no GUI anymore.
The firewall seems to work fine otherwise.
I have upgraded it many times since, and it always boots now, but no GUI.

The problem I have now is that I can't even boot the DEV ISO's to reinstall the FW software, as it crashes already before launching the installer wizard.
The v2.6 ISO boots fine

I will try to get you a picture from where it crashes

[D a l]

Or better yet, is there a way to log the boot sequence to a file?

[Gertjan]

@d-a-l said in After upgrading to the latest 2.7 DEV the main web page is blank:

The problem I have now is that I can't even boot the DEV ISO's to reinstall the FW software, as it crashes already before launching the installer wizard.

That has nothing to do with what's on the system's 'disk'.
If the installer stops "installing", go back to the previous stable version, like 2.6.0, and wait for a stable dev 2.7.0. to show up.

[stephenw10]

Or try re-installing 2.6 and upgrading to 2.7 again. See if the problem is at least repeatable.

If you enable a serial console you can get the full boot output that way. Otherwise you can get the dmesg output and /var/log/dmesg.boot via ssh.

Steve