<![CDATA[WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode"]]>Hello,
I added a network card (TP-Link Gigabit Ethernet PCI-Express Network Adapter (TG-3468)) on pfsense so I could use it as a router. I have to ethernet ports, one is built in the motherboard, the second is the TP-Link. The issue persists even if use the TP-Link as WAN instead of the built in.
Everything works fine after assigning the interfaces, I am able to access the web GUI without any problem, server never crashes, but the WAN did not connect to the internet, as my ISP requires PPPoE authentication.
So I go to Interfaces -> WAN and set IPv4 Configuration type to PPPoE, and set the Username, and Password, and clicked the blue "Save" button.
The pfsense box instantly crashes after saving, and goes into a reboot loop and never fully boots. I tried running fsck, but it did not solve my issue. I resetted the settings going on the command line and using /etc/rc.initial and resetting to factory default, from here I was able to recover my crash log.

Full crash log: http://pastebin.com/raw/dMXnL6ZC
S.M.A.R.T. Tests (from pfsense): http://pastebin.com/raw/hc6wx6Nu (May be in good condition, not sure)
Was unable to do Memtest86+ because for some reason, the computer does not recognise memtest86+ iso image as bootable.

Crash:

<118>Configuring WAN interface...
<5>re1: link state changed to DOWN
ral0: discard raw packet
<6>ng0: changing name to 'pppoe0'

Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode
cpuid = 0; apic id = 00
fault virtual address	= 0x0
fault code		= supervisor read data, page not present
instruction pointer	= 0x20:0xffffffff807b1566
stack pointer	        = 0x28:0xfffffe0467662af0
frame pointer	        = 0x28:0xfffffe0467663380
code segment		= base 0x0, limit 0xfffff, type 0x1b
			= DPL 0, pres 1, long 1, def32 0, gran 1
processor eflags	= interrupt enabled, resume, IOPL = 0
current process		= 4862 (mpd5)

I have looked at https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/29649/
Should I replace the HDD, and if it does not work still, I replace the RAM, then if I am lucky, it might work? Also should I get the development release of pfsense when reinstalling on new HDD?
I do not believe the ethernet cards are causing the crash.
I do not understand why PPPoE authentication causes hardware to fail and crash, as it does not crash without enabling it.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/topic/111907/wan-pppoe-causing-boot-loop-fatal-trap-12-page-fault-while-in-kernel-modeRSS for NodeFri, 10 Apr 2026 20:16:24 GMTTue, 21 Feb 2017 14:55:05 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode" on Wed, 22 Feb 2017 07:13:43 GMT]]>@kpa:

@humaidq:

@w0w:

ral0? What is this? It should be some wireless ralink chipset? FreeBSD and pfSense would not be happy with most of wireless cards.

It is the built in ethernet on the motherboard, there is no way to remove it other than unsoldering it, should I insert another ethernet card to use instead of the built in?

It can't be the built-in ethernet because the ral driver is for a WLAN card and not for an ethernet NIC:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ral&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+11.0-RELEASE+and+Ports&arch=default&format=html

Oh, I see. I did not know that. I setup the interfaces correctly, now everything seems to work fine!

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/681627https://forum.netgate.com/post/681627Wed, 22 Feb 2017 07:13:43 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode" on Wed, 22 Feb 2017 06:13:51 GMT]]>@humaidq:

@w0w:

ral0? What is this? It should be some wireless ralink chipset? FreeBSD and pfSense would not be happy with most of wireless cards.

It is the built in ethernet on the motherboard, there is no way to remove it other than unsoldering it, should I insert another ethernet card to use instead of the built in?

It can't be the built-in ethernet because the ral driver is for a WLAN card and not for an ethernet NIC:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ral&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+11.0-RELEASE+and+Ports&arch=default&format=html

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/681615https://forum.netgate.com/post/681615Wed, 22 Feb 2017 06:13:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode" on Wed, 22 Feb 2017 05:27:44 GMT]]>@w0w:

ral0? What is this? It should be some wireless ralink chipset? FreeBSD and pfSense would not be happy with most of wireless cards.

It is the built in ethernet on the motherboard, there is no way to remove it other than unsoldering it, should I insert another ethernet card to use instead of the built in?

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/681608https://forum.netgate.com/post/681608Wed, 22 Feb 2017 05:27:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode" on Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:34:48 GMT]]>I doubt that there's anything wrong with your hardware and this is a simple misconfiguration somewhere. Get rid of the wireless interface (which you failed to mention) as the first step and then redo the interface assignments on the console from scratch.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/681435https://forum.netgate.com/post/681435Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:34:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode" on Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:31:01 GMT]]>Yeah, remove the wifi card before debugging anything else.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/681432https://forum.netgate.com/post/681432Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:31:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to WAN PPPoE causing boot loop "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode" on Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:20:28 GMT]]>ral0? What is this? It should be some wireless ralink chipset? FreeBSD and pfSense would not be happy with most of wireless cards.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/681430https://forum.netgate.com/post/681430Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:20:28 GMT