Console screen is blank, returning "Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console'"

[Mark Holtz]

I've got a strange symptom that I think is related to each other.

Call me old fashioned, but while I know that I can use both the GUI interface and SSH into a FreeBSD box remotely, I also prefer to have an actual "monitor" hooked up "just in case". Must be too many times at my old job where I had to run a fsck when the system administrator was two hours away and doing tech by cell phone. OK, so the monitor is actually a HDTV. In a pinch.....

Anyways, one thing that I noticed is that FreeNAS is coming up to a blank screen on the monitor. This is more of an annoyance than anything else. In reviewing the messages, I am seeing a periodic "Aug 4 10:54:20 vaultron syslog-ng[1581]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'". Now, here is the strange part.... when reviewing the /var/log/messages, these messages started appearing at Aug 4 10:54:20. Waitasec.... that sounds familiar. I checked the boot menu and....



That corresponds to when the latest update to FreeNas 9.10 was downloaded and run on my server. So, it may have something to do with an update scrambling a config file. But, what config file? I know enough about Linux/FreeBSD to find and grab the log files, but not enough to fix the issue without some handholding.

 

[DrKK]

That is quite interesting! Suggest you file this on bugs.freenas.org---exactly as you have described it here---and have an actual dev take a look. In the meantime, it might be an interesting experiment for you to pull out a new boot device, install the most recent 9.10 onto it, and try booting your system from there. If, now, your console (i.e., HDTV) comes up, then we'll know you either have a corrupted boot device, or the devs jacked something up on the update.

 

[stilgars]

Same issue,

Since I installed 9.10.1 (and reinstalled from scratch, no config file imported), I have this nagging message every SINGLE minute in my console:
Aug 9 21:32:06 freenas syslog-ng[2215]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'
Aug 9 21:33:06 freenas syslog-ng[2215]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'
Aug 9 21:34:06 freenas syslog-ng[2215]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'
Aug 9 21:35:07 freenas syslog-ng[2215]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'
Aug 9 21:35:07 freenas syslog-ng[2215]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'
Aug 9 21:36:07 freenas syslog-ng[2215]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/dev/console', error='Device not configured (6)'

https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/9776 should be seriously investigated, as this issue seems to pop up more and more frequently since 9.10.1,

 

[Mark Holtz]

Defect https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/16762 has been filed.

 

[Mark Holtz]

That is quite interesting! Suggest you file this on bugs.freenas.org---exactly as you have described it here---and have an actual dev take a look. In the meantime, it might be an interesting experiment for you to pull out a new boot device, install the most recent 9.10 onto it, and try booting your system from there. If, now, your console (i.e., HDTV) comes up, then we'll know you either have a corrupted boot device, or the devs jacked something up on the update.

Not possible at this time, especially since I just completed a drive replacement and resilvered the RAID. This is my "production" NAS server, and I don't have a spare box at this time to try this out. :(

 

[Mark Holtz]

According to the updates, it is a duplicate of bug 16700, which, in turn, references bug 16156.