11.2 series won't boot after install or upgrade

ikke

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Apr 22, 2012
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Hi,

I hosed my system by upgrading it. I've been running freenas on the same HW for sereral years. Just changed the usb sticks once a year as they get broken. But now I couldn't boot after update to 11.2U1. I have now done several re-installs today to get to the roots of it. It seems 11.1 series installs and boots fine, but if I upgrade to 11.2U1, it won't boot. Neither will it boot after clean install. The bootloader just doesn't work. I loose the first character in my monitor, but it seems to say:

Code:
gtpzfsboot: error 32 lba 30031240
gtpzfsboot: error 32 lba 1

Can't find /boot/zfsloader.


There is some problem with the bootloader. The installer boots 100% of the time. So does the 11.1 series. I believe the new one is not grub, but the freebsd bootloader. Apparently buggy.

I will now install back 11.1, and hold my thumbs up the configuration will be backwards portable.

The weird thing is, it booted once after upgrade. I upgraded from 11.1 to 11.2U1, and it rebooted nicely. I got to push my old configs db in, and now it's again in this broken boot screen. Just like in fresh install of 11.2.
 

ikke

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Apr 22, 2012
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One weird thing, after the upgrade the BIOS doesn't show the USB stick correctly. So perhaps the USB partitioning is different from the grub one, and the old BIOS doesn't recognise the boot device. Perhaps that bootloader output is now coming from some other disk?
 

ikke

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Is there a way to upgrade to 11.2 still maintaining grub? I find no other way to get freenas back up than installing 11.1 with grub, and restoring some old backup.
 

Chris Moore

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One weird thing, after the upgrade the BIOS doesn't show the USB stick correctly. So perhaps the USB partitioning is different from the grub one, and the old BIOS doesn't recognise the boot device. Perhaps that bootloader output is now coming from some other disk?
The new installation is using the FreeBSD boot loader instead of the GRUB boot loader. This might be part of the problem. Have you tried updating the BIOS on the system?
Also, is there an option in the bios for UEFI vs 'Legacy Mode'?
 

ikke

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Apr 22, 2012
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That's what I see is the problem. The new FreeBSD bootloader just doesn't boot with the older BIOS. This machine is so old, there are no recent BIOSes. With grub it boots both in legacy or UEFI installation option.

Somehow the BIOS won't even see the FreeBSD bootloader USB stick in boot priority menus.
 
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Two more of us find the same issue - the USB produced by two ISO writers -- RUFUS and ETCHER -- are not bootable. I first submitted the issue to the RUFUS author, who provides the best support of any product I've experienced. My complaint:

"After using RUFUS (or ETCHER, ... ), my USB stick winds up as an unusable, unbootable GPT volume. This only happens (so far) with this particular ISO (FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1). I can use DISKPART to reformat as MBR FAT32 OK; no problems doing a long format; issue has been replicated on 2 PCs and 3 USB sticks."

You can see my full complaint and Pete's full response at https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/issues/1261, but in summary:

"...I tried to test FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1.iso on an UEFI machine, and it didn't seem to boot for me, but I suspect this may be because it requires BIOS/CSM which I hadn't enabled, and it's not my job to figure out what FreeNAS requires when I could validate that the image was written exactly as it should from Rufus (i.e. if there is any issue, then it's a pure FreeNAS one, and it's up to the FreeNAS people to sort it out)."

So apparently (it seems) there should be additional information in the FreeNAS 11.2 Release User Guide (https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/freenas.html) telling us how to set up our PCs (both were Supermicro-based) to be able to boot the new ISO.
 

Chris Moore

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Chris Moore

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I don't thonk this has anything to do with how you write the stick. I use dd. The ISO is formatted in some incorrect way for older BIOSes.
How old is "older"? My system board was purchased 8/17, but the AMI BIOS is 3.0a, dated 12/17/2015. There is a 6/9/18 "3.2" update, but it appears to be a security update only.
 
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ikke

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My BIOS is from 2012. really old well served board. No more recent updates available.
 
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I just tried to use the " Windows USB/DVD Download Tool" to write the USB drive, and it claims that FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1.iso is not a valid ISO file. So, as I said before, it seems there should be additional information in the FreeNAS 11.2 Release User Guide (https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/freenas.html) telling us how to set up our PCs (both were Supermicro-based) to be able to boot the new ISO. Or, perhaps, fix the ISO.
 

nasmaniac87

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I have a similar problem. I'm not able to install properly 11.2 version with new bootloader. When i use legacy configuration in bios, bootable usb won't boot (its stop on "booting"). When i use uefi configuration im able to finished instalation but after that system stuck on booting. To "burning" bootable usb i used rufus, and it is totally failure. Using bootable installation cd is most effective and successful. My configuration: Asrock q1900itx (the newest bios), 16 gb ram, 1 x wd green 1tb and 2x wd red 2tb in raid 1, 60 gb ssd for system.
 
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I found from the RUFUS author that this particular ISO image is a hybrid (whatever that means), and is not supported by RUFUS, but you can write it as a DD image. It's also not even acknowledged as a "valid ISO" by Microsoft, so I think the FreeNAS folks has some 'splainin' to do. I haven't found a way to write a DD image in RUFUS either. I finally gave up and used a CD and the install went smoothly.
 

ikke

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Apr 22, 2012
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I've done bootable install images in past. I typically did those with genisoimage. It has plenty of flags, and if you miss one, the image looks valid but won't boot. I know we don't talk here about isoimage, but could it be there is some flag which Freenas installer is not setting, thus making the boot device not working?

It works on new boards, but not in my old one. What could be such differiating factor that breaks the boot?
 

ikke

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Apr 22, 2012
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@Michael Armstrong, I'm afraid you are confusing two things here:

1. FreeNAS not booting from boot USB after install is done
2. FreeNAS installer media USB stick not booting

My issue is 1. It has nothing to do with RUFUS or what ever tools to write USB sticks with in order to make install media, or broken USB sticks. My install media works 100% of the time, as I do byte by byte copy using dd -command.

This issue is about FreeBSD boot loader not being able to boot once installed and doing the real boot of installed system. There seems to be bugs reported about this with other aged hardware. Like this: https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/65517 and this: https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/52647
 

nasmaniac87

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There is any chance that freenas team fix this in short period of time? or if not, which itx motherboard with built in cpu is recommended for 11.2?
 
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ikke

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Apr 22, 2012
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Commenting just as a user of open source project. Fixing bugs is typically matter of interest and difficulty. For commercial products, like TrueNAS, I'd imagine they would be interested if it hit any enough paying customer. Such then justify paying developers to fix them. For that to happen, I'd say it's unlikely. Companies (paying customers) tend to renew their HW after support period is over, which is typically 3 years. So they don't likely run broken BIOS, as this happens with older HW/BIOS.

So we are likely relying on upstream support. That then is matter of how good reproducal cases you have, and of course anyone skilled to get interested. If this could be repeated easily, and one could report actively back, we might have chance. This happens repeatedly if you own such HW, but you'd need to have extra FreeNAS installation for that. One can't just keep on debugging on production HW. The best if this could be repeated on FreeBSD, so the freebsd boot loader developers might get interested.

Best if someone having such old BIOS and extra board could do experiments on this to find the promlem. It is either in freebsd boot loader, or in the way it's build, or in the way FreeNAS installs it, or in a way FreeNAS installer creates the partitions into boot media. If lucky, it could be simple install option error. Without being able to reproduce the issue, it's hard for anyone to fix it.

Those should be now tested by someone with HW, time, competence and interest.
 
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