Failed update from 11.1-U7 to 11.1-RELEASE-U1, system won't boot

[hubiel]

Hi, sorry for being selfish and ask for help, but I understand that update is recommended and I would like to make it eventually.

Unfortunately, after following these instructions: https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/install.html#upgrading (updating via web interface), the system doesn't boot anymore. GRUB menu loads, then after selecting "Normal Bootup" it stucks displaying "Booting 'Normal Bootup'". After selecting "Verbose Bootup", it stucks showing nothing.

Booting up 11.1-U7 again worked, thankfully. My setup is AsRock Q1900-ITX, boot device is SanDisk Cruzer Blade 8GB. FreeNAS shows it's status as healthy.

What can I do to make update successful?

 

[dlavigne]

Please try the steps in the Resolving Boot Issues section of https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/library/freenas-11-2-release/ and let us know the results.

 

[hubiel]

I see the first step is fresh install. Is update actually known to work for anyone? I read in this post that bootloader has changed from GRUB and this seems to be the faulty part of update process in my case, as I'm clearly still with GRUB and booting doesn't even slightly progress when 11.2 is selected. It doesn't seem that any stress on boot device would be the issue, as 11.1 loads fine from the very same device...

Rest assured I will try that when I'll get around and buy new USB stick, but I wanted to try an update and not fresh install.

 

[dlavigne]

Typical failures are failing boot device, wrong BIOS mode, or not up-to-date BIOS. We had quite a few reports of hardware not liking the new boot loader and have narrowed them down to certain Supermicro BIOS' in combination with a particular SANdisk USB 3 drive. Those listed steps should help you narrow down what applies to your particular hardware setup.

 

[hubiel]

Unfortunately this didn't work. I purchased a new Sony 16 GB USB stick and tried steps 1 and 2:

1. Installing in BIOS mode, since that's what I was using before. During installation there was one suspicious message, "gmirror: Invalid class name.", but the installation continues, apparently ending with success. However, during boot attempt I see messages indicating presence of files in /boot/kernel and /boot/modules, but after the blue "Booting..." message the process stucks. Enabling verbose mode didn't change anything.

2. Installation in UEFI mode didn't have the aforementioned error. I know that my mainboard has "compatibility mode" setting for BIOS bootup that was previously enabled, so I disabled it. The boot process continues beyond the point of step 1, but stucks at "Trying to mount root from zfs:freenas-boot/ROOT/default []...". Enabling verbose mode shows that after few minutes, more messages appear, which are already described in this post: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/11-2-hates-me.72037/ However, changing between USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports didn't solve it for me.

I'm unsure if step 3 is really necessary because I still have my old stick with 11.1-U7 which boots up correctly.

 

[dlavigne]

Please create a report at bugs.freenas.org which includes the testing steps you have done so far (to get the dev up to speed) and post the issue number here.

 

[hubiel]

I will. Can you please advise me how do I structure it? I mean, from my perspective there are 2 issues here:
- failure to boot in BIOS mode,
- failure to boot in UEFI mode,
since both behave different and give different error messages.

But maybe for you guys it's important to describe everything that happens on my particular setup, and as such I should put everything in one report titled "problems with 11.2-U1 on AsRock Q1900-ITX" or something like that?

 

[dlavigne]

You can link to this forum post. You should also attach a debug to the ticket (System -> Advanced -> Save debug) which will give the dev access to the hardware config and logs. Note that your ticket will be hidden from others until the dev has a chance to review the debug and remove it.