"BTX halted" error with 2.2.2
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I have a machine that boots off the 2.1.5 CD just fine. However, booting a 2.2.2 CD, either amd64 or i386, fails with a "BTX halted" error. I'd like to install the latest version, but obviously cannot do so with this error.
The 2.2.2 CD boots just fine on another machine, so I think the CD is good.
And I don't think that the newer version of FreeBSD is the problem, because I downloaded the FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE CD, and it boots just fine on the machine that cannot boot pfSense 2.2.2.
Here is what shows on the screen when booting the 2.2.2 amd64 CD:
CD Loader 1.2 Building the boot loader arguments Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found Relocating the loader and the BTX Starting the BTX loader BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02 Consoles: internal video/keyboard BIOS CD is cd0 BIOS drive C: is disk1 int=00000000 err=00000000 efl=00010246 eip=00036b04 eax=00000001 ebx=00000000 ecx=00000000 edx=00000000 esi=00000000 edi=00000000 ebp=0008fe00 esp=0008fd98 cs=002b ds=0033 es=0033 fs=0033 gs=0033 ss=0033 cs:eip=f7 35 78 dc 03 00 85 f6-74 05 89 3e 89 5e 04 89 c2 e9 cc 00 00 00 66 c7-45 ea 00 00 89 d8 c1 e8 ss:esp=00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BTX haltedIf I try to boot the 2.2.2 i386 CD instead, the error message is identical except that the third number in the line that begins with cs:eip is 64 instead of 78.
When the error message is printed on the screen, the machine is not locked up; I can use Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot the machine.
The machine has a Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard with 1GB RAM and a 2GHz AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU. I think I've disabled about everything I can in the BIOS, but the fact that the FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE CD boots fine makes me think that BIOS settings are not the problem.
If there's any further information that would be helpful, please let me know and I'll do my best to provide it. I would be grateful for any help to get this working.
Thank you!
James
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And why do you need to boot the CD? Make a configuration backup and try upgrading from the Web GUI?
Other than that: disable ACPI, disable DMA… boot from USB memstick...
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Thank you for your reply. I'm booting from a CD because the hard drive in that machine failed, so I needed to do a fresh install.
Since you suggested upgrading from a prior version, I went just now and installed 2.1.5 on a spare hard drive. Then at the terminal I chose "Upgrade from console" using the "auto" url. It downloaded that and installed it. When the pfSense menu came back it said "Welcome to pfSense 2.2.2-RELEASE-pfSense", so it looked like the upgrade went OK.
Then I rebooted the machine, and when it came back up it gave me this:
BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02 Consoles: internal video/keyboard BIOS CD is cd0 BIOS drive C: is disk1 int=00000000 err=00000000 efl=00010246 eip=00036b04 eax=00000001 ebx=00000000 ecx=00000000 edx=00000000 esi=00000000 edi=00000000 ebp=0008fe00 esp=0008fd98 cs=002b ds=0033 es=0033 fs=0033 gs=0033 ss=0033 cs:eip=f7 35 78 dc 03 00 85 f6-74 05 89 3e 89 5e 04 89 c2 e9 cc 00 00 00 66 c7-45 ea 00 00 89 d8 c1 e8 ss:esp=00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BTX haltedWhich is the same error as before.
So it doesn't seem to be an issue with the method of booting, since the same error was produced when booting 2.2.2 from the hard drive.
And as for your suggestions about disabling ACPI and DMA, as far as I can tell I cannot disable those things in the BIOS. And I don't get far enough along in the boot process to choose to a boot-time option to disable those things.
Anyway, it's probably worth noting again that the FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE CD boots just fine on this machine. Since that's the same OS that pfSense 2.2.2 is built on, I would expect that any hardware issues/incompatibilities/etc would be the same in both.
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If you can't twiddle any BIOS options then you're screwed. The problem seems to be BIOS with iffy AHCI support.
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OK, but then why is it that the FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE CD boots just fine on this machine? I was thinking that any BIOS problems and hardware issues that affected pfSense 2.2.2 would also affect FreeBSD 10.1, since that's the OS that pfSense 2.2.2 is built on. Is that not a correct assumption?
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Yes, but it could be that pfSense added some boot switch that is not a default setting in FreeBSD 10.1. For example, your error seems to be reported a lot with other systems built on FreeBSD specifically, so there is some commonality.
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If pfSense has changed something in FreeBSD 10.1 that makes it unable to boot on this machine, that would seem to me to be a bug in pfSense. Is there any reason I shouldn't submit a bug report ticket on redmine?
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It can't hurt to report it.
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I've reported it now and it's bug #4718: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4718
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I was wondering if you ever resolved this issue. I'm encountering the same problem and have the exact same motherboard/cpu combo.
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I also have the same issue. Mine is an HP Compaq Desktop with an AMD Athlon x2 processor. Mine keeps rebooting after displaying the BTX loader message.
It looks like the BTX loader or the options it is being given doesn't like AMD processors.
If I use a similar model HP desktop but the one with the Intel Processor in it, it works fine. -
I didn't think I'd find anyone with a similar set up to me but here I am. A8N32-SLI deluxe (from a gaming machine of the past) with an Athlon 64 x2 3800+.
I've also had the same issue as the OP booting from a memory stick after an upgrade from the web interface. I've had to stick to 2.1.5 because I couldn't get it to boot with any combination of BIOS settings related to power management. Same message. :'(
I wouldn't like to decommission it over something like this. :(
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I also have the same issue. Mine is an HP Compaq Desktop with an AMD Athlon x2 processor. Mine keeps rebooting after displaying the BTX loader message.
It looks like the BTX loader or the options it is being given doesn't like AMD processors.
If I use a similar model HP desktop but the one with the Intel Processor in it, it works fine.This.
I have an Athlon X2 3000 that gives that error when booting from USB, it won't even get that far with the CD.
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I am also having the same error, both with a live CD and a USB stick, where "BTX halted". I can't get to the boot settings, and have disabled everything not needed in the BIOS.
I also have an ASUS system:
AMD Athlon 62 X2 Dual Core Processor
Speed 2000MHz
Count 2
BIOS 0112 07/21/2006So, it's most likely something between ASUS and pfSense. What, remains to be seen. I'm going to try 2.1.5 instead of the current 2.2.5 (giving me the errors) and see if that works with the earlier version.
Seems it's obviously something changed in pfSense between 2.1.5 and 2.2.5 that's conflicting.
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pfSense 2.3-ALPHA would be worth a try. That is based on FreeBSD 10.2-STABLE. And also the build of pfSense 2.3-ALPHA is a lot more stock FreeBSD. So maybe among all those changes, something of FreeBSD that works for this hardware will now be in the pfSense build also.
(And worth checking that FreeBSD 10.2 is also still working fine on this hardware)
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pfSense 2.3-ALPHA would be worth a try. That is based on FreeBSD 10.2-STABLE. And also the build of pfSense 2.3-ALPHA is a lot more stock FreeBSD. So maybe among all those changes, something of FreeBSD that works for this hardware will now be in the pfSense build also.
(And worth checking that FreeBSD 10.2 is also still working fine on this hardware)
Good shout, Phil. I put pfSense-2.3-ALPHA-4g-amd64-nanobsd-vga-20151116-1309 onto a spare flash drive and it booted without issue on the first go. :)
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Good shout, Phil.
Just dumb luck. I had a particular Jetway board (very different hardware to this thread) that worked with 2.1.* but not 2.2.*, I should dig that out again and try it with 2.3.
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in overall for this problem to be salved, is to put the harddrive in to another laptop an install the OP, and then switch back the harddrive to the previous laptop to configuer the OP.
