Update from 9.10.2 rendered unbootable system

[James Snell]

This is kind of a half-assed bug report.

Problem
Upon running the update system on a completely completely fresh installation of FreeNAS from the 9.10.2 ISO that I just downloaded, the system was rendered unbootable. I saw various healthy-looking messages fly by in the Console as it appeared to be updating, then the machine rebooted and landed on this:

Steps to reproduce

1. Download 9.10.2 ISO, load on usb drive to install from via dd.
2. Install FreeNAS to brand-new, dual Kingston USB 3.0 Flash Drives (these)
3. Select EFI booting.
4. When system comes up, do the first page of the setup wizard (select time zone and keyboard map, exit the wizard for the rest).
5. Attempt to load a previous config, get error message that the latest ISO has provided not the latest build and thus can't use config.
6. Run update function and wait for the above given screenshot.
7. Sigh.

Update 1
So I moved on by installing fresh yet again, selecting the Legacy boot method at the end of the install and then things seemed fine. What's weird is now some hours later, I get the following error message for my boot volume:

Code:

pool: freenas-boot

state: ONLINE
status: One or more devices has experienced an error resulting in data corruption.  Applications may be affected.

action: Restore the file in question if possible.  Otherwise restore the entire pool from backup.
  see: http://illumos.org/msg/ZFS-8000-8A
  scan: none requested

config:
	NAME		STATE	 READ WRITE CKSUM
	freenas-boot  ONLINE	   0	 0	 2
	  mirror-0  ONLINE	   0	 0	 4
		da0p2   ONLINE	   0	 0	 5
		da1p2   ONLINE	   0	 0	 4

errors: Permanent errors have been detected in the following files:
		//usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/bsd/acl.so
		//usr/local/www/data/docs/_images/translate.png

Again, this is now a totally fresh install, on mirrored USB drives. So WTF? How could there be missing files already? I ran the "Verify Install" function after updating and maybe that exposed this. Is this an actual fault?

Code:

[root@nas2] ~# sum /usr/local/www/data/docs/_images/translate.png
sum: /usr/local/www/data/docs/_images/translate.png: Input/output error

[root@nas2] ~# sum /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/bsd/acl.so
sum: /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/bsd/acl.so: Input/output error

Is FreeNAS really actually safe to use from USB drives? I mean, I've done so for years, but I'm baffled here. Fresh install over two mirrored drives and yet, wtf, it seems quite unstable.

More
This is all very cute. I saw the flash drive I've run on for years was being reported as faulty. I haven't noticed any failures, but my long-running, decently maintained FreeNAS install was in jeopardy. I exported my config, attached an additional USB drive and added it to the boot volume to make a mirrored root fs. I then shutdown, removed the ailing drive and attempted to boot. The system wouldn't boot, as grub seemed improperly configured. The system had been configured for Legacy BIOS/MBR type booting. I tried a ton of things with my ASUS B85M-G motherboard but I couldn't improve upon the booting situation. In fact, for a while, I couldn't get the motherboard to actually seem to begin to boot at all from my USB drives any more, which led to a BIOS update. Eventually I booted with the failed drive, added another new USB flash drive and had FreeNAS replace the failed drive in the newly created boot volume mirror. Of course, that wasn't at all helpful and gave me no way to boot my system. So I did a fresh install, which then led to the above shitshow. Finally, I reinstalled again but selected Legacy booting at install time. The new system updated fine (though I didn't actually do step 4 above). Then I loaded my config and was recovered (perhaps not emotionally). Anyway, I'm thankful for FreeNAS. Just was.. Enjoyable.

 

[gpsguy]

Please mark your thread as "Solved".

 

[James Snell]

Please mark your thread as "Solved".

How is it solved? If anything I'm saying EFI booting has a bug or something that breaks booting during an upgrade, at least for some systems. Or is this well documented and actually resolved somewhere? That'd be impressively fast considering I downloaded the latest 9.10 ISO from the FreeNAS site yesterday and promptly ran aground over this.

 

[gpsguy]

Some users have run into issues with 9.10.2, see this thread for an example: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-update-work-for-you.48856/page-2#post-340782

If you think it's a bug, submit it on: https://bugs.freenas.org/projects/freenas/issues?set_filter=1&tracker_id=1 and post the issue number here. By and large, the FreeNAS developers don't participate on the forums.

After reading your wall of text and seeing "Then I loaded my config and was recovered (perhaps not emotionally). Anyway, I'm thankful for FreeNAS. Just was.. Enjoyable" at the end of the post, it sounded like your problem was resolved. It wasn't clear (at least to me) in your opening message that you thought this was an EFI related bug.

How is it solved? If anything I'm saying EFI booting has a bug or something that breaks booting during an upgrade, at least for some systems.

 

[James Snell]

Fair enough gpsguy. It was a long, emotionally-charged rant. I've created a ticket for the issue: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/20305

Thank you for the link to the ticket system.

 

[sef]

He's right, this is solved: your system doesn't actually support (U)EFI booting, so you hosed yourself when you selected it.

 

[docdawning]

I can't wait for the comet to hit.

He's right, this is solved: your system doesn't actually support (U)EFI booting, so you hosed yourself when you selected it.

Yeahhhhh.. I said after the install, the freenas system booted fine. How could it do that over EFI if the board didn't support EFI? After a successful boot after the initial install, THEN I ran the updater from within freenas. THAT broke my booting.

Also, here's the linked motherboard product page, which seems to indicate that EFI is.. like.. a thing.