Unable to install plugins following 9.3 to 9.10 upgrade

[brunnenguk]

After upgrading from 9.3 to 9.10, I've noticed that I'm unable to install any new plugins.

The installation appears to work, but the new plugin is not visible on the tree in the left side of the web page. When viewing the list of plugins through the plugins icon on the top of the web page (and switching to "Installed"), I can see the new plugin with no icon. Attempting to start it produces the message "Some Error Occurred".

I'll admit, I don't have much experience with BSD and I haven't used Linux for a while so I'm a little rusty on some general unix type concepts and don't know much about what goes on "under the hood/bonnet" with BSD.

To get a little more information, I connected to the box via ssh and tailed (following) /var/log/messages. Here's what I saw:

Apr 16 18:48:40 freenas1 warden: Building new Jail... Please wait...
Apr 16 18:48:40 freenas1 warden: zfs clone SYSTEM/jails/.warden-template-pluginjail@clean SYSTEM/jails/plexmediaserver_1
Apr 16 18:48:41 freenas1 warden: Success!
Apr 16 18:48:41 freenas1 warden: Jail created at /mnt/SYSTEM/jails/plexmediaserver_1
Apr 16 17:48:42 freenas1 devd: Executing '/etc/pccard_ether epair2a start'
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 epair2a: Ethernet address: 02:ff:20:00:07:0a
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 epair2b: Ethernet address: 02:ff:70:00:08:0b
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: epair2a: link state changed to UP
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: epair2a: link state changed to UP
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: epair2b: link state changed to UP
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: epair2b: link state changed to UP
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: epair2a: promiscuous mode enabled
Apr 16 17:48:42 freenas1 devd: Executing '/etc/pccard_ether epair2b start'
Apr 16 17:48:42 freenas1 devd: Executing '/etc/rc.d/dhclient quietstart epair2a'
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: ng_ether_ifnet_arrival_event: can't re-name node epair2b
Apr 16 18:48:42 freenas1 kernel: ng_ether_ifnet_arrival_event: can't re-name node epair2b
Apr 16 18:49:19 freenas1 notifier: Performing sanity check on nginx configuration:
Apr 16 18:49:19 freenas1 notifier: nginx: the configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
Apr 16 18:49:19 freenas1 notifier: nginx: configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
Apr 16 18:49:21 freenas1 mDNSResponder: mDNS_Register_internal: ERROR!! Tried to register AuthRecord 0000000801485D60 freenas1.local. (Addr) that's already in the list
Apr 16 18:49:21 freenas1 mDNSResponder: mDNS_Register_internal: ERROR!! Tried to register AuthRecord 0000000801486180 140.123.0.10.in-addr.arpa. (PTR) that's already in the list
Apr 16 18:49:22 freenas1 manage.py: [freeadmin.navtree:629] An error occurred while unserializing from http://10.0.123.140/plugins/plexmediaserver/3/_s/treemenu: No JSON object could be decoded

The references to mDNSResponder are interesting. Could this be the cause?

 

[dlavigne]

What's your build version (from System -> Information)? A recent SU fixed a similar problem.

 

[brunnenguk]

My build version is: FreeNAS-9.10-STABLE-201604140622 (8781269)

 

[BigDave]

The references to mDNSResponder are interesting. Could this be the cause?

Not likely, my logs have the same two mDNS errors and I don't have any plugins or jails installed.

 

[brunnenguk]

Not likely, my logs have the same two mDNS errors and I don't have any plugins or jails installed.

Looks like the mDNS errors were a red herring.

I think it was some bad Static DHCP leases I'd allocated from my router. I cleared them out and it works fine now.

Instead of using static DHCP leases, I'll just stick with plain old DHCP. The only annoyance is that the when creating a jail from a plugin, there's no control of naming prefix suffix. This is a slight annoyance as the jail name is also the "hostname". I'm in the progress of moving from one FreeNAS box to another, so having the FreeNAS server name used as a prefix/suffix in jail names would be quite useful.

e.g. "plexmediaserver_isengard" in place of "plexmediaserver_1"

Anyway, everything looks to be up and running now.

 

[brunnenguk]

I think i've gotten to the root cause now. Whenever I encounter this issue when installing a plugin, the MAC address of the jail for the new plugin was a duplicate of another jail. After changing the MAC address (usually by one digit) it showed up correctly in the list.

 

[dlavigne]

Nice. BTW, the next SU will have a fix for the duplicate MAC issue.