SOLVED Degraded Boot Pool or worse...

[GreyKatana]

Hi guys, I installed FreeNAS 9.3 on two new SanDisk UltraFit 32GB.

Straight in FreeNAS webgui it tells me that my boot pool is degraded, that one device is missing.
I tried booting with only one or the other and then I get shoved at the mountroot prompt.
Error messages during boot (with 1 or 2 devices) show some usb timeouts (will get the precise message if needed but now the machine doesn't want to boot into FreeNAS at all).

Both USB thumb drives seemed healthy when mounted under Windows (FAT32 before installing).
I previously used one to put memtest86+ on it and the other to store some files for one day but that's it.

Any guesses? Bad mobo (please don't tell me that), bad USB thumb drives, boot_delay, karma, etc...?

I'll supply any additional information that might help.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

It's possible one of the sticks is bad, or one of the USB ports. Also, checksum the download if you didn't already do so.

It might be helpful to make sure you can get it to boot and run using a single stick. Test it in different USB ports and see if the behavior changes. Once you know the system can be stable, try installing to mirrored sticks again.

 

[GreyKatana]

Any single one of the sticks in any port result in stopping at the mountroot> prompt. But together they boot in a degraded pool.
At the same time, any of the USB sticks shows you the GRUB menu and starts the FreeNAS boot process. So they work.
It's as if something went wrong later on.

After two bad brand new X10, if this third one has fudged up USB ports I swear it's gonna be my last Supermicro product ever.

Here's some of the related errors in the dmesg:
usb_alloc_device: set address 3 failed (USB_ERR_TIMEOUT, ignored)
ugen1.5: <SanDisk> at usbus1
umass0: <SanDisk Ultra Fit, class 0/0, rev 2.10/1.00, addr 5> on usbus1
umass0: SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x8100
umass0:7:0:-1: Attached to scbus7
usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 3 failed, USB_ERR_IOERROR
usbd_req_re_enumerate: addr=3, set address failed! (USB_ERR_TIMEOUT, ignored)
usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 3 failed, USB_ERR_IOERROR
usbd_req_re_enumerate: addr=3, set address failed! (USB_ERR_TIMEOUT, ignored)
usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 3 failed, USB_ERR_IOERROR
usbd_req_re_enumerate: addr=3, set address failed! (USB_ERR_TIMEOUT, ignored)
usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 3 failed, USB_ERR_IOERROR
usbd_req_re_enumerate: addr=3, set address failed! (USB_ERR_IOERROR, ignored)
usbd_setup_device_desc: getting device descriptor at addr 3 failed, USB_ERR_IOERROR
ugen0.3: <Unknown> at usbus0 (disconnected)
uhub_reattach_port: could not allocate new device

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Sanity check:
You're using USB2 ports, right?
And you did checksum the download?

When I suggested testing with single sticks, I meant to say using a clean install.

 

[GreyKatana]

USB2 ports: Yep
Checksum: All clear

Okay will try with a clean install on only one stick.

 

[GreyKatana]

Tried clean install on each USB sticks separately.
After rebooting both stop at mountroot> prompt.

Really odd since together they managed to boot before, though the pool was degrade.

At the mountroot prompt I tried entering "zfs: freenas-boot" but it failed with "Mouting from zfs:freenas-boot failed with error 2: unknown file system."

I guess the next step will be to try installing another OS on one of the USB stick and see how it goes.

 

[GreyKatana]

I tried installing FreeBSD 10.2 but it doesn't allow me to select a USB stick as the root drive with either ZFS or UFS.

I'm pretty sure the ports are good since the server loads up GRUB and then start the FreeNAS boot process.
This also tell me that the USB sticks are somewhat working. I suspect a weird interaction ala "boot_delay" but that should have been fixed/worked around in 9.3

I'll try the FreeNAS 10.2 Alpha 2 and if that doesn't work, something like Puppy Linux.

If any of you have other ideas, I'm all ears.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

If any of you have other ideas, I'm all ears.

Me too

 

[SweetAndLow]

What hardware are you using?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

OP's sig:
SuperMicro X10SLL-F
Intel Pentium G3450
Crucial/Micron 1 x 8GB ECC 1.35v RAM
2 x 1TB WD Red HDD Mirrored Vdev
2 x 32GB SanDisk Ultra Fit Mirrored Boot Devices
SeaSonic G-360 PSU
Fractal Design Define R4 Case
Ubiquity EdgeRouter Lite upgraded to 16GB and OpenBSD 5.8 MIPS64

@GreyKatana, note that users on mobile devices can't see your sig.

 

[GreyKatana]

Thanks Robert for telling me.
I didn't specify my hardware since it was in my signature.

 

[GreyKatana]

OK, just installed FreeNAS 10.2 Alpha on one of the same USB stick in the same port and it booted without any issues.
The boot time was a lot longer though, maybe twice as long but no error was reported.

Will play with it for a little while and I'll add the second USB stick and mirror them if all goes well.

 

[GreyKatana]

Seems like this is my problem https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/7435
It's a shame I didn't see this before as the SanDisk Ultra Fit sticks were recommended around here but apparently the 32GB version has some problems.

Will have to purchase some Cruzer Fit 16GB to continue my setup since FreeNAS 10 is far from releasing.

Spread the word if you see people thinking about using those in their build threads.