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    SG 2440, How to recover from an upgrade gone wrong?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
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    • B
      bobkoure
      last edited by

      I have a pair of netgate SG 2440s. Both came with pfSense 2.3.1.
      The status page indicated that 2.4.0 was available.
      On the first box, all went as it should, almost immediately got notification that 2.4.1 was available, upgraded again, worked fine, terminal shows menu.

      On the second box, I went through the motions of upgrading, but the firewall is still on 2.3.1. Now it shows 'Unable to check for updates; on system/update/system update. As well, the current version information on this page is blank. System/Package Manager/Installed Packages shows "Unable to retrieve package information".

      The terminal is not showing the 'menu' that I typically get, but instead is showing a blank screen that reflects what I type.
      When I reboot, I see the boot-up routine, including an indication that it's pfSense 2.3_1, but no menu.
      I get the same results whether I reboot from the WebUI or power cycle. I am unable to reboot from the terminal.

      Is there a way to fix this, short of sending it back to Netgate? For instance, is there a way to boot from a USB stick, and install the image from there?

      Thanks!

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      • ivorI
        ivor
        last edited by

        Yes, you can reinstall pfSense easily. Simply follow this guide https://www.netgate.com/docs/sg-2440/reinstall-pfsense.html

        Need help fast? Our support is available 24/7 https://www.netgate.com/support/

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        • B
          bobkoure
          last edited by

          Thanks!

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          • ivorI
            ivor
            last edited by

            That's also covered by our documentation :) https://www.netgate.com/docs/sg-2440/connect-to-console.html

            Need help fast? Our support is available 24/7 https://www.netgate.com/support/

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            • B
              bobkoure
              last edited by

              @ivor:

              That's also covered by our documentation :) https://www.netgate.com/docs/sg-2440/connect-to-console.html

              I saw that while I was reviewing the reinstallation pages, realized I was cluttering, and modified my message to a simple thank-you.

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              • ivorI
                ivor
                last edited by

                No worries :) I just wanted to make sure you saw the rest of documentation! Glad you're back up and running!

                Need help fast? Our support is available 24/7 https://www.netgate.com/support/

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                • B
                  bobkoure
                  last edited by

                  Actually, not up and running - so thanks for following up.
                  I'm now only getting garbled characters on my PUTTY terminal.
                  I've tried 115200 and 9600, and have power cycled the 2440 a couple of times. It's a USB serial connection so I can't fuss with stop bits and the like. Same laptop, same settings (except a different port number) works fine on my other 2440 - and it was working on this one up to this morning.

                  A little hard to make a menu choice if you can't see the menu. Is there a way to do it 'blind'?

                  I've tried the reset button, following the video here https://vimeo.com/143197016 (power unplug, replug, start holding reset button as soon as lights go green, wait for lights to go red, which on this 2440 took about a minute and a half).
                  I did not expect this to sort my terminal issue - and it did not. AFAIK, a 'reset' just deletes the configuration.

                  Starting to wonder if I have a failed unit. It was purchased this last summer, but I only started trying to get them sorted a couple of weeks ago; they'd sat in their boxes until then.

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                  • B
                    bobkoure
                    last edited by

                    Time for a red face and a face-palm - rebooting the windows box sorted my PuTTY garbled-screen issue. On to installing from USB! :-)

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                    • ivorI
                      ivor
                      last edited by

                      OK, that's good :) I assumed it's a user error, console is pretty much bulletproof! If the unit failed you wouldn't get it to boot and you would only see red light.

                      Need help fast? Our support is available 24/7 https://www.netgate.com/support/

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                      • B
                        bobkoure
                        last edited by

                        Up and going. The banner now shows 'community edition' version 2,4_1. Any idea if that's an issue on a 2440? I'd guess not. If there is, how do I get what's on my other firewall (the 2440 that upgraded just fine) onto this one?

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                        • ivorI
                          ivor
                          last edited by

                          It's not an issue at all. You just used a community image for the unit. Community image is identical to the factory one with exception of AWS Wizard, IPsec profile and a few device specific tuning parameters (all of those are available on our wiki).

                          If you have a factory image downloaded, you can install it. If not, just stick with CE.

                          Need help fast? Our support is available 24/7 https://www.netgate.com/support/

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