Freenas 9.3 boot hang issue

[ShipDaddy]

I've been using Freenas for some time and been enjoying using it. I started getting some bad sector messages in 9.2.1.9 and for some reason I could no longer update my plugins using the interface. I backed up all of my files on an external network drive, installed FreeNas 9.3, formatted my 3 HDD and created a new volume using RaidZ. I installed Plex and Transmission, configured them but they would not activate. I rebooted the system and now it will no longer boot up. I've tried different BIOS settings, I've reinstalled FreeNas on the USB but it always hangs at the same place. I am hoping someone will know what is causing this so I can move on. Here is a screen shot of what I am seeing.

My Hardware is
Core I3-4130T
Gigabyte B85M-D3H motherboard
8GB Ripjaws DDR3 1600
3x3TB WD Red drives
Kingston Datatraveler 8GB USB

 

[Reptarju]

Looks like its hanging on the last disk to me:
ata2-check
ata3-check
ata4-...........
(if someone else could chime in, not familiar enough with BSD reservations)

and turn off HDA in bios if you can.

How are your drives plugged in?

• Are all 3 hooked up to the (4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors) or are the crossed between 6 and 3?
• Is the kingston plugged into a usb3 or usb2 port?

 

[ShipDaddy]

I've still been playing with it and I may have gotten it fixed simply by installing a different build of 9.3.1. I was previously on 09022158 which was the build that hung on boot. I installed 9.3.1 09282017 and it started up immediately. I guess something in my system just didn't like the other version.

 

[DrKK]

I've still been playing with it and I may have gotten it fixed simply by installing a different build of 9.3.1.

I find it unlikely in the extreme that the problem was which build you were using. I would say it's more likely that you have some other hardware related problem. This motherboard is way below our recommended spec/quality for FreeNAS, is not intended for server deployment, and so on. Also, the Kingston Data Traveler is possibly the worst USB thumb drive in existence; we have been warning users off of using anything in the "data traveler" model set (and Kingston in general) for some time. I actually had 13 of these devices, IN A ROW, start throwing errors within two weeks of builds I was making. We have all been using, primarily, SanDisk Cruzer Fit (or Ultra Fit), with excellent success.

So, almost anything could be wrong, but the most likely culprits, in my view, are:

• Weird motherboard/BIOS problem
• corrupted operating system files on your Kingston flash drive
• something odd with one of the hard drives

I recommend you take advantage of the fact that the boot-device is now ZFS, and can be deployed as a mirrored pair. Most of us are using *TWO* thumb drives in the mirror configuration as our boot device. This gives some integrity assurance for frequently-failing parts, like USB thumb drives.