NAS doesn't boot without a screen attached

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rebytr

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Jul 23, 2016
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Having same issue with an ASUS Maximus Hero VIII motherboard. I've tried every BIOS setting combination I can think of. Also tried adding the hint.vga.0.disabled line to the device.hints file, but still no luck.

sysctl kern.vty returns vt for me when I have a HDMI monitor connected.
 

pschatz100

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All the systems I have allow one to specify in the bios whether or not booting should continue when errors are encountered. They tend to be worded in different ways and sometimes are hidden under advanced options. Are you certain you looked very carefully at the boot options in your bios?

What happens if you boot with a monitor attached, then remove the monitor. Does the system still continue to function? Is it possible that you installed or updated some plugin that requires input via the monitor? Also, have you tried booting from the last FreeNAS image that worked?
 

rebytr

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I have disabled the bios setting related to pausing if errors are found. With a monitor connected and no keyboard, I do see the error message there is no keyboard attached and it continues with the boot, so I know it's set correctly in the bios.

If I pull the hdmi cable in the middle of the boot it still works fine. Continues to boot without a problem. Without a monitor I don't even get the boot menu. Just a black screen when I try to connect a hdmi cable.

For me this is a fresh build, just a couple of days old. Never worked headless from day one.
 

pschatz100

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For the posters who experienced the problem after a FreeNAS update... What happens when you revert to the previous FreeNAS build that worked? What is the last build that worked for you?

For @rebytr, I noticed that there are folks on some of the gaming forums that have similar complaints with Windows 10. Your problem could be a timing issue, or some incompatibility with FreeBSD. Since the problem has existed from day one, there are some things you can try:
1) Make certain bios is latest version. Use default settings. Do not set any high-performance options.
2) Are you booting from a USB flash drive? If so, and you are using a usb3.0 port, then try moving the flash drive to a usb2.0 port
3) Try using only one memory stick to see if that makes any difference.
4) Try an older build of FreeNAS to see if that makes any difference
 
J

jpaetzel

Guest
I still think this is a bug in the vty console driver. I've yet to find anyone having this issue using the sc driver. There's been a number of issues that have resulted in systems using vt that should've been sc.

If anyone is hitting this issue and sysctl kern.vty returns sc I'd like to know.
 
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rebytr

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1) Make certain bios is latest version. Use default settings. Do not set any high-performance options.
Confirmed I'm running the latest. Tried default settings but still have the same issue.

2) Are you booting from a USB flash drive? If so, and you are using a usb3.0 port, then try moving the flash drive to a usb2.0 port
Yes, I'm booting from a USB Flash drive. Tried several different usb ports both 2.0 and 3.0. Still no luck.

Have not tried the last two suggestions yet as they are a bit more involved. This is a "production" system, so hate to have to reload / pull memory.

Happy to provide any further details if needed on my config.
 

rebytr

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So today I was able to resolve my issue of not being able to boot FreeNAS headless. Here are the steps I followed:

1) Modified the files in /usr/local/etc/grub.d. Searching for all occurrences of where kernvt was set to "vt" and replacing it with "sc".
2) executed "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"

I noticed that after running grub-mkconfig, the files under/grub.d had reverted back to their original state, so not sure if this fix will be permanent.

That's all it took. Any ideas why that fixed the issue and will this be a problem in the future?
 

romracer

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Aug 5, 2016
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I have an ASRock Rack C236 WSI as well. I did have some issues with POST output until I switched the BIOS settings to Primary Graphics Device: Onboard VGA but I think this is board related, not FreeNAS.

Regarding the issues with "kern.vty=sc" or "kern.vty=vt", especially in 9.10.1, I'd point out this thread:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...on-system-not-displayed-efi-blind-mode.45144/

My C236 WSI won't output any console information during boot (up to GRUB works fine) unless I set kern.vty=vt during boot. My understanding was vt supports UEFI better, and sc supports BIOS better.
 

garyc

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Dec 1, 2015
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According to the specs it has 1 x HDMI and 1 x Mini DisplayPort; but no VGA. Aside from just being a wrong type of system for FreeNAS altogether...



I wonder if @rsarro and @garyc also have systems that only use hdmi and/or displayport?

Maybe that is the commonality?

Yes only have onboard hdmi. Still wont boot without monitor connected as of latest update 08/06 It is an ASUS sabertooth z97 mark1 works fine if monitor attached through boot and then removed.
 
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