YMMV - Might be you...not the firewall - 24.11 reboot flapping symptom
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TL/DR - Desktop using manual systemd networkd was the sudden network issue not the pfsense. Reboot yourself.
Posting only so that others might have this in the back of their mind.
I punched the button to bump from 24.03 > 24.11 and things seemed quite goofy. Pinging had a great number of no responses, network up, network down...more down than up. Never even saw the pfsense complete its upgrade. Refreshed the page several times, eventually it told me 24.11; services still loading...disconnect...
Root of the problem was not the pfsense at all.
Every other device in the house did not have any issues after system rebooted. After rebooting that desktop everything was fine. Previous attempts at rebooting the pfsense did nothing except waste time.
Non-standard config issue identified: I have hardwired desktop (linux) and had removed network manager a while back and did a manual systemd network configuration as the config really shouldn't change (no wifi req'd), and I need a primary dhcp and a manual fallback. Very simple. This technically fires up the network about 10 seconds faster than network manager usually accomplished it. However, it really didn't like the fact that the pfsense was derping about.