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    'can't load kernel' after update 1.2.2–>1.2.3

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
    14 Posts 7 Posters 9.6k Views
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    • B
      BadDancer
      last edited by

      nothing helped :'(
      I tried to flash last BIOS update, I unplugged HDD at all to enter a pure live pfSense 1.2.3 session… All I see - 'elf32_loadimage: read failed' on the first seconds of boot progress.

      p.s. pfSense 2.0 beta makes identical result

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      • D
        danswartz
        last edited by

        Wait, now you're saying you can't even boot from the 1.2.3 CD?  It sounds like the IDE port on the motherboard is going bad then (as to why it works with 1.2.2, who knows?)

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        • B
          BadDancer
          last edited by

          @danswartz:

          Wait, now you're saying you can't even boot from the 1.2.3 CD?

          Exactly so! It seems that in ver.>1.2.2 pfSense stopped to support some component of my hardware.

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          • C
            clevenp
            last edited by

            I just tried to install pfsense 1.2.3 on an old Celeron based machine with 196 M of ram. The machine is about 5 years old. Motherboard comes from China (…)
            I get exactly the same error (elf32 .... read in error) and pfsense does not install.
            somewhere else I read about the 1.2.2 version and I tried that one and this version loads correctly and installed pfsense correctly (on the hard disk)

            obviously something changed between 1.2.2 and 1.2.3 and it is not related to the used hardware but to pfsense bootstrap (maybe the old hardware has a wierd way to use the upper memory but 1.2.2 was able to deal with it and 1.2.3 isn't)

            will pfsense create an updated version that runs on the older hardware?

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            • W
              wallabybob
              last edited by

              A while ago I tried to install pfSense on 500MHz PII systems. I never could get it to boot correctly with the GRUB boot loader but the FreeBSD boot loader worked ok. I'm not suggesting this is your problem. I'm mentioning this to suggest there might be more to it than just old hardware.

              This experience was months before 1.2.3 release was available. More recently, I've only ever done firmware upgrades and not ever had a problem with them. I'll try to download a 1.2.3 release CD image and have a go booting it and trying to run as a live CD.

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              • C
                cmb
                last edited by

                We don't develop the OS, hardware-specific regressions need to be replicated with stock FreeBSD and reported to FreeBSD list to be fixed.
                http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Policy_on_FreeBSD_issues

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                • W
                  wallabybob
                  last edited by

                  @clevenp:

                  will pfsense create an updated version that runs on the older hardware?

                  I've been able to boot the CD on a system with ASUS P2B motherboard and 450 MHz PII CPU. This system is at least ten years old.

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                  • ?
                    Guest
                    last edited by

                    I have the exact same issue on an old Intel 667 MHZ machine.  Just spent 2 hours hauling a monitor and keyboard down to the basement to get it back up and running again on 1.2.2.  If anyone else is having the same issue and needs to downgrade back to 1.2.2, get it from here: http://files.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/old/

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                    • ?
                      Guest
                      last edited by

                      some additional info on why the kernel may not be loading and a fix (maybe one of the devs can recompile it with the fix): http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2009-December/thread.html#53132 beginning at "loader(8) readin failed on 7.2R and later including 8.0R"

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                      • jimpJ
                        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                        last edited by

                        Try the fdisk/bsdlabel suggestion here:
                        http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting

                        Should also work when booted from a 1.2.2 CD.

                        If you can wipe/reformat, you might also want to make a small / partition (less than 4GB) and make the rest /usr - obviously that requires a custom install and not a quick/easy install

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                        • ?
                          Guest
                          last edited by

                          @jimp:

                          Try the fdisk/bsdlabel suggestion here:
                          http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting

                          Should also work when booted from a 1.2.2 CD.

                          If you can wipe/reformat, you might also want to make a small / partition (less than 4GB) and make the rest /usr - obviously that requires a custom install and not a quick/easy install

                          Jimp, I also tried booting from a 1.2.3 livecd and even the livecd doesn't load with the same error message.  From http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2009-December/thread.html#53132 , they seem to be saying its a memory issue with the loader and a possible solution is offered.

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