Frequent pfSense Plus GUI Crashes and Service Failures
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@smsigroupit if PHP isn’t running then the web server/GUI isn’t going to work. None of that (PHP) is related to other services like DHCP.
Can you see any reason why PHP isn’t running? Or what’s happening to other services?
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Hi @SteveITS,
Thanks for the clarification.
I haven’t identified a clear reason why PHP isn’t running yet. However, when the GUI becomes inaccessible, I also observe the following:
The DHCP server stops assigning IP addresses. VPN clients are disconnected.Are there any specific logs or diagnostics you recommend checking to pinpoint why PHP stops or why the services fail simultaneously?
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System Patches
Should i apply all the recommended patches?
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@smsigroupit Check the main system log.
You can apply the patches but I doubt they will change your symptoms.
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What packages are you running?
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Do yo have the service watchdog enabled? If so what things is it checking?
That is really only supposed to be used for troubleshooting and doesn't play nice with everything. If you have it set to watch Suricata for example you can end up with numerous instances running.
But, yes, something is probably using the available php threads and I'd expect to see something in the system logs in the run up to it ceasing to respond.
I assume it' doesn't actually 'crash'? You don't see a kernel panic and crash report?
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i already remove the service watchdog, will monitor the system status
i dont see any kernel panic in the system logs
if click the Crash Reporter does nothing
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Hmm, check in /var/crash if you can. Any crash report that's still on the system should be there.
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there is no files
also im getting this error
Jun 5 07:28:56 nginx 2025/06/05 07:28:56 [error] 12856#100360: send() failed (54: Connection reset by peer) while logging to syslog, server: unix:/var/run/log
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@smsigroupit That could simply mean, that there's no crash/kernel panic thus no dump. Mostly when there was only a PHP error that gets recorded as "crash".
I guess that the symptoms could match the tracked bug in redmine where the widgets/dashboard is under heavy load/overload through widget handling that got changed/fixed with 25.x then? Don't know if that fix was available as System Patch but remember seeing it in the proposed release notes for 25.x
Cheers
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Mmm, possibly. Though that usually only makes it slow or use a lot CPU cycles. And the 8200 has a lot of spare CPU cycles to use up so.... it seems unlikely.
DHCP and VPN failures could be a filesystem problem. Is it close to full?
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Thank you!
After applying all the patches, I no longer encountered any crashes in the pfSense GUI.
Will monitor the system status and this error message;
nginx 2025/06/05 07:28:56 [error] 12856#100360: send() failed (54: Connection reset by peer) while logging to syslog, server: unix:/var/run/log
