Nightly from dec 30th will only boot with monitor connected to pfsense box
-
I've run into a weird issue with my small mini PC running pfsense CE.
It was running fine on the December 14th nightly (pfSense-CE-2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT-amd64-20221214-0600), but thought I would update to the december 30th one (pfSense-CE-2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT-amd64-20221230-0600) via the webinterface, to see if any improvements had been added.
The upgrade seemed to go well, however the router never came up (only blinking orange status LED on the LAN interfaces, but not the LAN is up green LED) and didn't make the beeps (small song) it normally does when fully loaded and running.
I moved the PC into my office and connected ethernet cables to it and a monitor via HDMI, and it booted fully.
At first I thought it might just be that it hadn't ran through the configuration fully and I had just been impatient. I moved the PC back to where it's normally located but kept the ethernet cabled from the office connected to test if it might be one of the ethernet cables that were to blame. It never came up running and had the same behaviour as origianlly with only the LAN status LED blinking.
Moved it back to the office, and the only difference after a lot of testing is that there's a monitor connected in the office when it fully boots.
As soon as I remove the connected monitor and tries to boot it up, it won't come up.Any suggestions except going back to the december 14th nightly?
-
Update: This morning I tested further, and it will boot even with the monitor off, it just has to be connected. The issue is that where the mini PC is normally placed there is no space for a monitor to be connected.
Specs of PC:
J4125 Intel Celeron CPU
8 GB DDR4 RAM
128 GB SSD
4x 2.5 GB Intel I226-V LAN -
That is most likely a BIOS/EFI issue and not anything to do with the build being booted. There weren't any OS changes in that timeframe. The last time we merged in code from FreeBSD in bulk was in October when we merged with main, and there have only been small bug fixes in the OS code since then. I don't see anything relevant in any of the three commits in src on the devel-main branch around/after Dec 14th either.
Also, you might check
/boot/loader.conf.localor/boot/loader.conf, if you have loaded a graphics driver module (which wouldn't happen by default), it's possible that might be doing it. -
It's just weird how it's reacted. Because the only change I've done was update via the vuilt in update function.
But yeah, as you say it sounds like it could be a UEFI issue. I just found it weird that it started after the upgrade, that's all.I have however found out that it's nice to have a monitor connected that you can power on when needed, so I've ordered a 7" LCD to connect to the mini pc instead of the current 22" that's on the floor in my living room. Right beside where the pfsense box is located. I hope that fixes it because that could be a potential solution/workaround.
Only reason I need the 2.7.0 developer builds is because the drivers for the LAN cards are only available in FreeBSD 14 and onwards.
-
Little 7-10" monitors are nice these days. I setup a nice little 10" touchscreen last month and was shocked at how well it worked.
And there are all kinds of VESA mounts you can get if space to set it down is an issue.
-
Yes, I found a 7" LCD with a stand on Amazon that looks to either be able to run 12V via the power adapter or via USB 5V. I hope the 5V USB power will work. That would be ideal.
I've got my network equipment housed in 4 compartments of an Ikea Kallax book case with door inserts, so it's hidden away,and with the back of those cut out to give the equipment air to breathe. That's why a 22" monitor on the floor in front of it isn't really ideal
-
@renesdk said in Nightly from dec 30th will only boot with monitor connected to pfsense box:
only change I've done was update via the vuilt in update function.
Is the built in update function working yet? I still get unable to check for updates message......
-
The build in update functionality works fine for me
-
@renesdk That's great. The can't update check issue has been around and thought it was until the new OS was merged, bugs worked out, etc. Was surprised to see you were able to update via update option. Just checked and still won't update.
-
I am able to duplicate this issue. It only happens with the build installed via UEFI. No other changes were made to the machine other then a fresh install of the nightlys. Previous install was the stable release (2.6?) I couldnt find a fix other then to either leave a monitor connected which is... Not great. The other option ins to do a legacy(bios) install and not UEFI.
-
@tekjunkie28 interesting and good to know. I never thought of looking into that.
I haven't changed the UEFI setting in BIOS for this machine so it's always been on, and to me would suggest that some kind of change happened either in pfsense or FreeBSD between the Dec 14th build and Dec 30th (and newer) to trigger this behaviour. -
Nothing changed anywhere near booting or video in the FreeBSD src repo between then (or even slightly before/after), and I don't see anything relevant in the other repos either, so it's odd that it seemed to happen around then.
