23.01 installation-minimal console output,no keyboard input.

NGUSER6947

@poisedregent Have you tried using puTTY?

PoisedRegent

@NGUSER6947 I have not. Screen has always worked for me before. Was thinking about grabbing another serial cable even though this is the one that came with device and is practically brand new. Oh ya and my action icons on GUI have reappeared somehow. No more blank squares.

jimp

Try disabling flow control.

screen <dev> 115200,-ixon or maybe even screen <dev> 115200,-ixon,-ixoff

stephenw10

I would also try a different USB cable. We have seen some oddly behaved cables in the past.

PoisedRegent

So after trying flow control again, no change. New cable, no change. I still can't see or interact with Console. I was able to install the recent 23.01 update netgate sent out and I am now able to install packages. Action icons are back to squares although they do appear every so many resets only to disappear again. 100% stuck. Too green to know what to do.

stephenw10

You have a screenshot of the 'icons as squares' just for clarity?

wblanton

I'm seeing very similar issues. After the upgrade and the system reboots, the console a login screen that looks like a typical linux (and I assume BSD) login. It literally just says "login:" and then "password:" after you enter the username. After I rebooted it, it boots up normally.

When it finally booted up, I had 4 PHP errors with the following message:

PHP ERROR: Type: 64, File: /usr/local/pkg/squid.inc, Line: 852, Message: Array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is no longer supported

Gertjan

@wblanton said in 23.01 installation-minimal console output,no keyboard input.:

/usr/local/pkg/squid.inc

You didn't remove the packages before you upgraded pfSense ?

What probably happened : the squid package was written, with PHP 7.4 in mind.
During pfSense upgrade, that PHP 7.4 was removed, and PHP 8.x was put in place.
Or, during upgrade, the packages - which, officially, see upgrade procedures - shouldn't be there as they can mess up the upgrade process, the installed packages are not upgraded.
That's done after the reboot. And can take some time.

What happened is that during startup some squid code was already executed.
And not compatible.

Doing nothing now is probably the best method, as squid will get updated as a final 'after pfSEnse upgrade process'. The error will be gone.

Btw : See, for example : pfSense Plus Software Version 23.01 is Now Available for Upgrades

Below Tips on Upgrading you will find :

Do not update packages before upgrading. Remove all packages or update packages after the upgrade.

The thing is : this time, there was a PHP upgrade.

That's like the building company that comes over to redo your house foundation.
You were thinking : should I remove the walls first ?
You said : Naaaaaaa, we'll see.

You saw it ;)

stephenw10

@wblanton said in 23.01 installation-minimal console output,no keyboard input.:

/usr/local/pkg/squid.inc, Line: 852

That's a known issue but it can be ignored if you rebooted and it fully booted after that:
https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/13680

But that's a different issue to what's being discussed in this tread. You should start a new thread if you need to discuss further.

Steve

toggenation

@jimp Thankyou!

I have an M1 macbook and I could see the console menu but could not input anything. I tried multiple different USB-C Male to USB-A Female convertors with the supplied Netgate 2100 cable and no change.

To get out of the stuck screen session:

Ctrl-a, Ctrl-\

This works on my Macbook Pro M1 ~circa 2020 running Sonmoa 14.4.1

screen /dev/cu.usbserial-110 115200,-ixon