Stuck at Installation Console Setup (FreeNAS 11.2-U5)

[NyxThat]

Hey guys,

I am a complete newbie to FreeNAS, but not to computers/programming in general. I'm stymied by this problem. Here are my system specs and process thus far:

Intel Core i5 6600K
Gigabyte GA-H170M-DS3H
WD Blue 1TB HDD
Kingston 120GB SATA 3 2.5" SSD
A ridiculous number of tried (and failed) thumb drives (all at least 8GB)

I've downloaded the .iso and burned it to a flash drive using both Balena etcher and Rufus. Whenever I boot, the normal boot menu appears (so it's recognizing my USB and booting into it successfully). When I hit Enter to create a new installation, I get this screen:

Note: This screengrab isn't actually from the version of FreeNAS I'm using--I pulled it off of the internet so that you guys didn't have to see an ugly, grainy photograph of my screen.

This Console Setup screen is 100% unresponsive. I've tried three different keyboards in several different USB ports, to no avail. I know the keyboards are working, because I can hit Enter on the previous screen to get to this one. Am I doing something wrong? Should I just hit enter on this screen and wait for a couple of hours?

 

[NyxThat]

Oops; forgot to specify RAM. It's HyperX Fury DDR4 3200MS 16GB.

This is an old gaming PC that I've cannibalized for parts before, but from what I've read, the hardware remaining should be fine for running FreeNAS.

 

[Ericloewe]

This is an old gaming PC that I've cannibalized for parts before, but from what I've read, the hardware remaining should be fine for running FreeNAS.

Well, fine in the sense that it should work for many values of "work".

You might just be very unlucky with your keyboards, but that doesn't seem very likely. You might want to try plugging in a USB keyboard after the screen is shown, just to see if anything else happens. I'd expect console text about the new USB device to show up at the bottom of the screen.

 

[NyxThat]

Well, fine in the sense that it should work for many values of "work".

You might just be very unlucky with your keyboards, but that doesn't seem very likely. You might want to try plugging in a USB keyboard after the screen is shown, just to see if anything else happens. I'd expect console text about the new USB device to show up at the bottom of the screen.

I've actually tried that keyboard check already with all three keyboards. They're all recognized in the console text.

 

[NyxThat]

Bump

 

[NyxThat]

Well, fine in the sense that it should work for many values of "work".

You might just be very unlucky with your keyboards, but that doesn't seem very likely. You might want to try plugging in a USB keyboard after the screen is shown, just to see if anything else happens. I'd expect console text about the new USB device to show up at the bottom of the screen.

Problem eventually solved. Turns out, it actually was the keyboard. All of the keyboards I tried were gaming mechs. Nothing super fancy—no RGB controllers or anything—and they were recognized by the system on plugin, but I borrowed my neighbor's crappy bluetooth keyboard and it worked fine. It seems the drivers for all three mechs were unsupported, or something like that. I'm well on my way now, though.

 

[Ericloewe]

That's not quite a new one, but still odd. Maybe it's the silly 1kHz update rate nonsense that used to be a big complaint from the hard-core PS/2 keyboard crowd.
My original Corsair K90 has a special simple mode that can be activated with an arcane key combination, but I've never needed it.

 

[garm]

I find it best to keep a PS/2 keyboard in a box somewhere for installing things. You never really know with USB boards