Errors preventing upgrade to pfSense Plus 26.03

tuanson84uk

I'm trying to upgrade my pfSense Plus from 25.11.1 -> 26.03 but there are errors that preventing me to do as can be seen in the console output below:

Architecture: amd64
Boot Devices: /dev/nda0
 Boot Method: uefi
  Filesystem: zfs
    Platform: unknown hardware


Updating boot code...

/usr/local/sbin/../libexec/install-boot.sh -b auto -d /tmp/be_mount.G5Gg -f zfs -s gpt -u nda0
gpart bootcode -b /tmp/be_mount.G5Gg/boot/pmbr -p /tmp/be_mount.G5Gg/boot/gptzfsboot -i 2 nda0
partcode written to nda0p2
bootcode written to nda0
umount: unmount of /boot/efi failed: Device busy
mount_msdosfs: /dev/nda0p1: Operation not permitted
Failed to mount /dev/nda0p1 as an msdosfs filesystem
Unable to update boot code on /dev/nda0
Failed

What should I do now? Please help and thank you.

stephenw10

Hmm, that hardware has a single NVMe drive? Is it actually booting UEFI? That's how it's being detected.

What does gpart list show?

tuanson84uk

@stephenw10 It is running as a VM inside ESXi - and yes, it only has one virtual drive from ESXi as its storage. Is this cause this problem?

And by the way, after digging Google and working with Gemini, I have been able to upgrade it after executing the command umount -f /boot/efi. I don't know why also, could you explain it to me with more details?

Thank you.

stephenw10

You mean you unmounted the efi partition before running the upgrade? And it then completed as expected.

tuanson84uk

@stephenw10 Yes, I executed that command then ran the upgrade again in the Web GUI.

stephenw10

Hmm, OK. That implies something was actively using that mount point still. Unclear what it could have been though since it completed after re-running.

Do you have the log from the successful upgrade?

tuanson84uk

@stephenw10 yeah, I recorded it here:

Architecture: amd64
Boot Devices: /dev/nda0
 Boot Method: uefi
  Filesystem: zfs
    Platform: unknown hardware


Updating boot code...

/usr/local/sbin/../libexec/install-boot.sh -b auto -d /tmp/be_mount.qbZC -f zfs -s gpt -u nda0
gpart bootcode -b /tmp/be_mount.qbZC/boot/pmbr -p /tmp/be_mount.qbZC/boot/gptzfsboot -i 2 nda0
partcode written to nda0p2
bootcode written to nda0
ESP /dev/nda0p1 mounted on /tmp/stand-test.9wIK95
263472KB space remaining on ESP: renaming old bootx64.efi file /efi/boot/bootx64.efi /efi/boot/bootx64-old.efi
263472KB space remaining on ESP: renaming old loader.efi file /etc/freebsd/loader.efi /etc/freebsd/loader-old.efi
Copying loader.efi to /EFI/freebsd on ESP
Existing UEFI FreeBSD boot entry found: not creating a new one
Copying bootx64.efi to /efi/boot on ESP
Unmounting and cleaning up temporary mount point
Finished updating ESP

Done.
>>> Copying upgrade log...done.
>>> Unmounting upgraded boot environment...done.
>>> Activating default for the next boot only...done.
System is going to be upgraded.  Rebooting in 10 seconds.
Success

stephenw10

Hmm, that looks completely normal. No clues there as to what was holding that mounted.