Netgate 3100 - Failed Upgrade
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@bitslammer "won't boot" as in nothing shown on the console? That would be a hardware issue.
If it's functional and won't boot due to a corrupted upgrade or file system issue you can try to reinstall via https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/sg-3100/reinstall-pfsense.html (a free ticket). Then restore a config file from backup.
@bitslammer said in Netgate 3100 - Failed Upgrade:
along the way I got a few errors
Depending on what they are, some errors are to be expected during the upgrade while PHP etc. are replaced.
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@SteveITS By "won't boot" I should have said that the boot sequence was hung and just kept repeating the "-sh: /etc/rc.initial: not found" error on the console screen.
I've since run USB recovery and restored my config from backup. I was just looking to see if there was anything additional I could do here. The last 3 upgrades have failed for me and all required USB recovery. I bought a 3100 specifically to ensure smooth upgrades and that hasn't panned out too well. Aside from Suricata and pfBlocker I haven't added anything beyond factory default and I have a pretty "light" config for both of those packages.
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@bitslammer I don't know, we have several clients with 3100s and over all our years with pfSense I think have only had two issues upgrading pfSense that I can recall offhand. Early on, one I think was booted too early (upgrades can easily take 10-15 minutes on eMMC storage). Another was several years/versions old when the upgrade was run, and it ran itself off the rails somehow, with some sort of mixed FreeBSD version and no functional firewall. Both were 3100s however.
Normally when I upgrade I uninstall pfB and Suricata, or other "big" packages, but leave other "simple" packages like apcupsd or the VPN export packages. The upgrade guide recommends uninstalling packages though says it shouldn't be necessary.
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@SteveITS Same here and I uninstalled them this time too. Honestly stumped as to why I have such poor luck. I even do a reboot before upgrading.
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Hmm, yeah that's unlucky at best!
I run a 3100 on my edge here with pfBlocker and Snort and it upgraded fine.
Do you have a full boot/upgrade log?
If you suspect you might have issues upgrading I recommend doing so from the command line (from the console directly if possible) using:
pfSense-upgrade -d
That way you will get the most debugging output to see why it fails if it does.Steve
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@bitslammer eMMC issue?
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/disk-lifetime.html#emmc -
@stephenw10 I don't have any of the logs for this time, but next time I'll be sure to capture the debug data.
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@SteveITS said in Netgate 3100 - Failed Upgrade:
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/troubleshooting/disk-lifetime.html#emmc
I hope not as it's not that old, but I'll look into that.
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Thanks much for reporting this.
I continue to struggle IF to buy "official" hardware from Netgate.
Hoping the "official" hardware would be the BEST and FULLY tested solution, and you would NOT find BETA software issues (how many
releases have been 100% or mostly flawless, even for the official hardware?). I have kept track with my own installations, plus the forums (over the last 10+ years)...Now, I'm willing to spend time testing BETA software (meaning, install the new "release" in a test system, with similar configs to my production systems), but then, I will NOT pay $129 a year for a license, (when my expert testing is $200 hour!)...
But this answers the question regarding official hardware. Thanks.
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@pppfsense said in Netgate 3100 - Failed Upgrade:
I continue to struggle IF to buy "official" hardware from Netgate.
Buying Netgate hardware certainly helps support the entire pfSense family, so that is a good thing!
One piece of advice that is just my personal opinion-- buy only Intel based hardware from Netgate. It seems nearly all the issues have revolved around ARM based appliances. Unfortunately, the more inexpensive appliances seem to be ARM based. The Intel platforms cost a bit more.
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My model 1100 with a very vanilla setup failed to upgrade from 23.05.1 to 23.09 and has the same error. I purchased the hardware to support the project even though I felt the price for their hardware was a bit rich. Silly me thought since the upgrade was over a month old it should be safe since even the flailing Microsoft can pull updates when their QA processes fail after a couple of weeks.
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How exactly did it fail?
