Can't load 'kernel'

dims

After power outage, I got pfSense box not booting. On screen I see a message

Can't load 'kernel'

Then is suggests to type question mark for list of commands and prints OK

I have simple commands like ls, lsdev, but I don't have cd or cat.

ls shows a 2 column list of apparent directories (d) and files, but I can't ls with path

OK ls boot
open 'boot' failed, no such file or directory

This can hint that filesystem was damaged, but I can see any file in first level, like

OK more COPYRIGHT
...<shows file>...

Can we suggest that filesystem is OK, but something like BIOS settings are bad? Or may be some automatic update changed kernel, which appeared not bootable.

Neither commands like

boot kernel.old
load /boot/kernel.old

worked.

Gertjan

Time to run a fsck.

dims

Is it possible to run it from boot loader? How to run it?

Gertjan

See here https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/hardware/troubleshooting-disk-check-errors-fsck.html

and or here https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/hardware/boot-troubleshooting.html

stephenw10

At the OK prompt do:

OK load /boot/kernel.old/kernel                                                 \
/boot/kernel.old/kernel text=0x17c69f8 data=0xb94940+0x517b18 syms=[0x8+0x198228
+0x8+0x198f6d]                                                                  -
OK boot -s

Steve

dims

@stephenw10 it says

can't find '/boot/kernel.old/kernel'
can't find '/boot/kernel.old/kernel'

(twice)

dims

@Gertjan it didn't help

I ran fsck it found some errors, fixed them, finally said filesystem is ok, but if booting then situation is the same. While in command line, I was able to mount that filesystem and browse it. boot directory was browseable.

dims

After I made

gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i1 ada0s1

I got worse situation on boot

Invalid partition table

jimp

If it got to the point where it can't load the kernel, I wouldn't settle for anything less than a wipe+reload. I'd also be suspicious of the disk itself.