pfSense CE 2.8.0 upgrade stalls after reboot and gets stuck in Stage 2

stephenw10

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

eracerxrs

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case for a fully corrupt bootloader, but I've encountered issues where it partially loads, but hangs where there are outdated or mismatched driver versions in the bootloader that required updates to initramfs with the expected versions.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

stephenw10

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.

dave.opc

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

InstanceExtension

Note: Updated the topic to include the fact that the issue was occurring during stage 2 of the upgrade.

chrcoluk

something I learnt last week, was it seems the display for the console can freeze whilst the system carries on booting and working as normal.

No idea if it is happening here, but it is odd it stops on a video message.

InstanceExtension

@chrcoluk As stated above "Letting it sit trying to load for an hour" no effect. When this happened to me (and others) the entire system was completely locked up. Nothing but a hard reset would bring it back.

manoj-synetal

may be I go the issue we just nee dot reboot the firewall and select the old kernel and boot the firewall after boot it will reboot again and you can access the latest version of firewall which 2.8.0 I tried and it work for me.

mtis

Does 2.8.1 fix these issues?

stephenw10

Which issues specifically? The UEFI console issue is still present AFAIK. Though it doesn't actually affect anything I have available to test.

mtis

@stephenw10

I haven’t caught up with the whole thread. All I can say is 2.7.2 works okay on my HP DL380gen9 but 2.8.0 won’t boot after the upgrade.

stephenw10

It appears to hang immediately after loading the kernel at the UEFI console?

Try booting legacy to confirm it's the same issue.