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    pfSense CE 2.8.0 upgrade stalls after reboot and gets stuck when loading

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Hmm, that's on real hardware? We did see that some time ago in some VMs. 🤔

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      • O
        oldhome7 @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10 yes real hardware, bare metal on a Dell R510

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • tinfoilmattT
          tinfoilmatt @InstanceExtension
          last edited by

          @InstanceExtension said in pfSense CE 2.8.0 upgrade stalls after reboot and gets stuck when loading:

          By default, the COM1 redirection is not enabled

          FWIW, I recently factory reset the AMI BIOS on an older ASUS server/workstation-class MB (~2013, Haswell), and I was distinctly surprised to find all COM redirection options enabled by-default as I combed back through the settings. Same appearance, same options as your screencap.

          But did that do it?! Might we finally have a resolution to this long and winding thread? Hard to tell at this point if something is actually going on here, or if it's a bunch of unrelated BIOS configuration options all loosely having to do with console redirection/display output settings.

          @InstanceExtension said in pfSense CE 2.8.0 upgrade stalls after reboot and gets stuck when loading:

          But I don't have a serial cable nor USB-Serial device to connect to the physical serial port anyway. I got rid of that stuff a decade ago.

          What about a VGA cable?

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          • I
            InstanceExtension @eracerxrs
            last edited by InstanceExtension

            @eracerxrs said in pfSense CE 2.8.0 upgrade stalls after reboot and gets stuck when loading:

            @InstanceExtension

            Did you try option #6 to try booting from the previous kernel?

            I just did that, and it booted the 2.7.2 kernel again, and at the very end, it said it was going to reboot to upgrade to 2.8. And miraculously it worked!

            Well I'll be damned. That worked for me too.

            93d3f2f3-9048-40f2-adb4-1d471a92284c-image.png

            There must be something about having the the background upgrade process (renewing certs, etc) run under the FreeBSD 14 kernel (CE 2.7.2) that allows it to work successfully and fails miserably under FreeBSD 15 (CE 2.8.0).

            Once the background upgrade process is complete it boots just fine under FreeBSD 15 (CE 2.8.0).

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Hmm, that's very interesting. That feels like some driver mismatch perhaps. Something that hasn't been updated yet when upgrade moves to stage 2. I'd expect to see some errors though if it tried to load that. Hmm.

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              • R
                Rnt @eracerxrs
                last edited by Rnt

                @eracerxrs, this worked for me too. Thanks!

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                • E
                  eracerxrs @Rnt
                  last edited by

                  @Rnt @InstanceExtension

                  Glad it worked out for you as well!

                  The last thing I saw in the Gui Terminal update process was:

                  Updating boot code...
                  
                  /usr/local/sbin/../libexec/install-boot.sh -b auto -f zfs -s gpt -u da0
                  gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptzfsboot -i 1 da0
                  partcode written to da0p1
                  bootcode written to da0
                  No ESP partition found...skipping.
                  
                  Done.
                  System is going to be upgraded.  Rebooting in 10 seconds.
                  Success
                  
                  

                  My FreeBSD experience is limited to when tinkering with pfSense, but whenever I experience an issue after an upgrade or systemd/grub modification on a Linux box, booting into the old kernel and then manually fixing the boot code is usually required.

                  Not sure if this was actually the problem in this case because it was so fast and thankfully auto-healed!

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Hmm, if it was a bootloader problem I'd expect to see it fail to load the kernel. And it wouldn't effect clean installs to 2.8. But it could be a clue...

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                    • I
                      InstanceExtension @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 said in pfSense CE 2.8.0 upgrade stalls after reboot and gets stuck when loading:

                      Hmm, if it was a bootloader problem I'd expect to see it fail to load the kernel. And it wouldn't effect clean installs to 2.8. But it could be a clue...

                      What clean 2.8 installs? We don't have an ISO which is just ludicrous.

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        From the Net Installer which is also built on FreeBSD 15. So unlikely a bootloader issue.

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                        • E
                          eracerxrs @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10

                          Yes, I'm sure that would be the case for a fully corrupt bootloader, but I've encountered issues where it partially loads, but hangs where there are outdated or mismatched driver versions in the bootloader that required updates to initramfs with the expected versions.

                          To investigate a bit further:

                          Previously it would freeze after configuring the harddisk da0. Last line being:

                          da0: 16384MB (33554432 512 byte sectors)
                          

                          Now that is successfully boots, here are the lines between that and the "pfSense" ascii graphic:

                          Configuring crash dumps...
                          Using /dev/da0p2 for dump device.
                          Filesystems are clean, continuing...
                          Mounting filesystems...
                          Mounting ZFS boot environment... done.
                          

                          For kicks, I reloaded the 2.7.2 snapshot and redid the upgrade, again, it froze, so when I used the old kernel to reboot I scoured the output and this is the only thing that stood out soon after booting:

                          >>> Removing vital flag from php82...done.
                          >>> Locking package pfSense-pkg-System_Patches...done.
                          >>> Reinstalling pkg due to ABI change...
                          Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
                          The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked)
                          
                          Installed packages to be REINSTALLED:
                                      pkg-1.21.3_4 [pfSense]
                          
                          Number of packages to be reinstalled: 1
                          [1/1] Reinstalling pkg-1.21.3_4...
                          [1/1] Extracting pkg-1.21.3_4: .......... done
                          
                          

                          And it continued installing similar to before, but this time ending in success upon reboot.

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            If you're able to test further try setting boot_verbose=YES in /boot/loader.conf.local.

                            That should show you where it's actually hanging or not during the boot at each stage. In the normal boot you don't see any output after it mounts root until init starts.

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                            • D
                              dave.opc
                              last edited by

                              i tried to install clean 2.7.2 then updated to 2.8.0 and during boot chose kernel.old
                              it started booting and updating to 2.8 (as mentioned before) but after reboot it's still stuck on the same spot, rebooting. so didn't help in my case

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