Netgate 6100 help
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Hi everyone,
My Netgate 6100 has been unstable since I bought it. I want my money back to be honest. Got it probably 7-8 months ago and wiped it 5x..
I'm now back to a TPLink router that was $300 compared to my $1k freaking router.The latest issue happened while I was working from home in the middle of a call I started seeing 40% packet loss. The gateway monitoring service crashed, then all the other services start crashing randomly. They will start then stop. I tried "reset back to factory settings" and load from a backup but the same thing happened. I cant remove packages, install, or get a stable connection on the 2.5G Ethernets. Anyone have any ideas?
If I go to remove a package for example I see "<package name> removal failed! Another instance of PfSense-upgrade is running. Try again later.
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What pfSense version is it running?
Seeing that message usually means what it says; that any pkg process is still running. Usually that's the update check but should timeout after some minutes even if there is no connectivity.
Do you see any errors in the system logs?
Steve
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@stephenw10 thanks for the reply. V23.3 is what was in the last backup I made yesterday. I have auto update check disabled but always says it’s “up to date” when I look through gui. This happened mid day (as it always happens) while the router was in operation. Right now it’s a paperweight.
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Hmm, that's the config version. It was that from pfSense versions 23.09 to 24.03. See: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/releases/versions.html
It should be running the current release version which is 24.03.
Ok so I assume you were trying to remove pfBlocker because you were seeing some other issue?
It sounds like you might have been seeing multiple issues creating confusing results.
Can I assume that after a clean install it behaves as expected until config is applied?
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The most stable version I think from my 2100 anyway is 23.05.01 it works better than any other version
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@stephenw10 I was just trying to remove all packages in case it was a bad package config.
I downloaded the latest via a USB and wiped it instead of “reset to factory.” It seems to respond a LOT better on v24 code base. I don’t think it’s ever worked with my modem so well before.. I’ll be sure to keep an eye on it and reach out if I have any more issues.
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@stephenw10 You know what when I reinstalled I just realized I installed to the 16G disk, not the 128G disk. I’m wondering if it was an issue with that 128G disk.. I’ll reformat that 128G disk tomorrow and try it.
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Yah, many of us here are running the 6100, and its rock solid. Some people have tons of packages installed too.
I’d be shocked if the default hardware is causing your problem, they do a really good job of testing before things are sent out to make sure there aren't any problems.
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Yup. I mean you can never rule out a hardware issue 100% but in general it's proven very reliable.
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Okay so I found some forums/guides on pfsense website to wipe the disks clean, especially when you weren't paying attention during install like I did and put it on the MMC disk -_-.
I was able to wipe both disks and choose the non MMC drive this time for the install and restored the backup. Weirdly the 24.03 install needed to reach out to Netgate servers for activation which was new. I also noticed after the install it didn't keep my interface selections or DHCP ranges. I had to redo everything I had already done in the installer, just to get a range my switch liked (DHCP Helper) so I could restore the backup. If there is a way to keep those choices AFTER install, I would recommend that for the newer installer. I must admit the appliance seems much snappier after a wipe-restore. Still a little perplexed as there not being any logs as to why the appliance stopped responding but we can close this thread for now and can chalk it up to bad install to start. Thank you everyone, especially Netgate for your time on this.
Here is what I found with geom -t (could help save time for someone else):
mmcsd0 'MMC Disk
nda0 'SSD (MAX versions only)gpart destroy -F mmcsd0
gpart destroy -F nda0' Wipe the first 1M of each drive. Waiting for it to wipe the whole disk takes forever...
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcsd0 bs=1M count=1 status=progress
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nda0 bs=1M count=1 status=progress -
@bseballjon9 said in Netgate 6100 help:
If there is a way to keep those choices AFTER install, I would recommend that for the newer installer.
Yes, this is an often requested feature that most users expect to happen. It's coming in a new installer version.
