SOLVED Cannot replace drive on boot volume.

[ChinookTx]

I have a boot volume (mirrored) that has become degraded. I am trying to replace the broken usb key with a new one, but the "replace" option in the gui doesn't appear to do anything. (It just spins like it's doing something for a bit and then goes back to listing the same broken device). If I try to "detach" instead, I get a python exception window as attached. Anything I can do to force detach or replace? This is on Release 11.1

 

[Jailer]

Save your config, reinstall, upload config.

 

[ChinookTx]

Doesn't that somehow defeat the purpose of having a mirrored boot device?

 

[Jailer]

No mirrored boot devices give you high availability in case of a boot drive failure. Me personally I would (and do) choose to go with a small cheap SSD for a boot device and you are far less likely to run into these issues.

 

[ChinookTx]

Well, not sure why the "detach" was failing through the gui. Detached from the command line with zpool detach freenas-boot 13022516645809960532 and then was able to add the new usb device through the GUI. Currently being resilvered.

 

[Chicken76]

Just had the same problem.
Logged in as root through ssh, detached from command line and then reattached from GUI. All worked fine like this.
Thank you for posting the solution.

 

[wblock]

It's not a solution if you don't partition the new boot device and install boot code so it can actually boot from that device if it ever needs to. Just adding the device to the mirror does not do that.

 

[Chicken76]

It's not a solution if you don't partition the new boot device and install boot code so it can actually boot from that device if it ever needs to. Just adding the device to the mirror does not do that.

I was under the impression that the GUI was already handling the partitioning and boot loader.
As for error messages, the GUI was displaying for a second at the top that the device is being replaced, but nothing actually happened (confirmed this with zpool staus).
I looked for something in the logs, but the only thing that stood out to me was this one line in /var/log/middlewared.log
[2018/07/02 08:04:12] (DEBUG) ZFSPoolService.get_disks():91 - Could not find disk for da1p2

 

[wblock]

I was under the impression that the GUI was already handling the partitioning and boot loader.

Well, yes, but if it errors out and the device is replaced with the command line... it's unknown whether that completed.

 

[Chicken76]

Well, yes, but if it errors out and the device is replaced with the command line... it's unknown whether that completed.

Only the detaching of the faulty device was done through the command line (because both the replace and detach buttons in the GUI didn't work).
Once the boot pool had a single device, the GUI worked perfectly to turn it into a mirror again.

 

[wblock]

Okay, good. Did you file a bug report?

 

[Chicken76]

No. Did the OP file one?
If he didn't, I'll try to replicate the problem and collect screenshots and log entries.

 

[wblock]

Thank you!

 

[Chicken76]

Thank you!

Just had it happen again. Filed
Bug #47884