Issues w/ boot on Netgate 4200
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I just got a new Netgate 4200 and had some issues with the device that seemed to have cleared. After doing a reboot of the device I wasn't able to get back into the system.
I had to take these steps to get pfSense to load and boot the operating system...
- unpower the device
- repower the device. The status light with the green circle stays flashing orange and remains like this for quite some time without anything happening.
- To load the OS and continue I have to press the power button which makes the flashing orange turn to solid white.
- I then hold down the reset button for quite a bit of time and the device will restart and I can use the console menu to boot into config in pfSense plus.
This issue seems to have gone away though now that I've rebooted a few times. What could have caused this? I checked the boot order and it seemed correct.
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@CatSpecial202 said in Issues w/ boot on Netgate 4200:
What could have caused this?
Normally, that info is available at the place only accessible to you : the console.
What did it tell you ? Tell us, and we tell you ^^ -
Flashing orange like that means it's in standby as though it's been told to power down.
When you hit the power button from that state it should power up. The LED breifly shows white then should go through the normal bot sequence.
But, yes, what is shown at the console whilst that is happening?
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@CatSpecial202
The same thing happened to my with my new 4200. I put in a ticket and Netgate asked for the device back. Console was blank after boot up, wait 10 minutes, solid orange light. If I held down power, it flashed orange, but console stayed blank. My 4200 MAX should arrive at Netgate on Thursday. -
@ddbnj Yes, that's exactly what happened to mine. This was quite frustrating. Did you do anything with the reset button or the power button to try to get it too boot again? Mine happened after a reboot. What were you doing to the firewall prior to this issue coming about?
That procedure I outlined in my original post is what I eventually figured out worked to get it to boot again and give me my configuration back. I wouldn't have known this was working if I didn't have the console port connected to the device and was watching its output as I was holding down the buttons.
@stephenw10 I provided the output from the console to support and it was like @ddbnj described, blank. After figuring out the buttons the console boot menu eventually populated but hung a couple times until it eventually progressed and now the 4200 seems to be operating normally. Prior to figuring this out I also got an approved return authorization but I wanted to keep moving and everything seemed fine. Support said they'd look at my status_output file after I have everything setup.
I found some articles about issues the 4200 was having with the boot sequence being out of order. After a few stable reboots I checked the bios of my unit and everything looked normal. So, not sure what could have caused this.
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Yup the boot sequence can end up incorrect but you would still see the POST output and it trying to boot from the wrong thing at the console.
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@stephenw10 so what caused our issue? we both have similar symptoms.
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Unclear. I've never seen a 4200 behave that way.
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@CatSpecial202 I never got it to boot but basically Netgate support just said to send it back after I reported the blank console and the power button behaviour.
Did you have a 4200 or a 4200 MAX?
