Upgrade error: Infinite "#" (pound / hash) signs immediately after second reboot

[voyager529]

Hey everyone,

Having seen the enthusiasm about the 9.3 release, in conjunction with my complete lack of issues upgrading to a Beta release in the past, I did a 9.3 upgrade yesterday. The NAS never came back up, and when I got home, it had a screen full of "#" signs. I rebooted again, and it started putting those signs again.

I rebooted and hit 'F2' when I had the three-option menu of "FREENAS/FREENAS/PXE". This one loaded 9.2.1.8 properly. Jails came up, core services started (nginx/proftpd/smbd, etc.), rainbows and unicorns all around.

I got greedy.

I attempted to run the update again on the 'F2' iteration, this time with me staring at the console window. When it rebooted, it said that it updated the database successfully (forgive me; I don't recall the exact syntax), and that it was rebooting again.

When it rebooted, I noticed that it was still using the standard FreeNAS boot screen. I recalled seeing the screenshots indicating that I should have been seeing a GRUB style bootloader, which I never saw. When it attempted to reboot, I again saw an endless number of "#" signs, appearing at approximately one per second, with no other output.

On the bright side, I *do* have a config file lying around, so I'm not completely busted. The fact that the 'F2' loaded my jails and my copy of BT Sync that lives in a dataset, so I'm of the persuasion that my volume is just fine.

Thus, I pose the following questions:

1.) Is there any value to the community for data to be extracted? If so, what data would be of value (assuming I can gather it)?
2.) From what I gather, the pecking order for recovery is:
a.) install FreeNAS.
b.) import the volume.
c.) import the config file
Is this accurate?
3.) Will the config files ensure that my jails are remounted, or will I be doing that from scratch?


Thanks!

Joey


Specs:
AMD Phenom X3
Asus motherboard (don't remember the model; I'll look tonight if it's relevant)
8GB 1600MHz Crucial RAM, non-ECC (I know...)
5xToshiba 3TB 7200RPM hard disks, RAIDz2
Intel E1000 PCIe NIC
Microcenter branded 8GB USB flash drive
PCI IDE/SATA host bus adapter (only for IDE DVD-ROM)

 

[jkh]

That's really weird - how are you attempting to do the upgrade? It sounds like it's not even repartitioning your disk (there should no longer be the function-key boot menu at all, or multiple UFS partitions for that matter). Do you have, perhaps, multiple boot devices in this system and you're actually in some scenario where 9.3 is on a different physical device than 9.2.1.8 and you're just confusing yourself about what you're actually booting from? :) Thanks.

 

[voyager529]

That's loosely what I'm thinking as well. I did a garden variety upgrade installation in the GUI, complete with SHA256. There's only one USB drive in the unit, and the only two things that are allowed by the BIOS in the boot settings are the DVD drive and the USB drive. I'd be open to the possibility of the USB drive's bootstrapper having been b0rked, but there would be nothing else available to the system from which it could boot, much less give me a FreeNAS splash screen.

I'd most certainly agree that the most likely scenario here is a botched attempt at repartitioning the drive, since the F2 iteration of 9.2.1.8, which wouldn't have booted if it got turned into a ZFS volume like it was, as I understand, supposed to.

I got the ISO for 9.3; I'll probably wipe the drive and install it tonight, unless there's a direct request for data off the drive, pursuant to question #1.

Joey

 

[voyager529]

Okay everyone, order has been restored. Here's what I found out...

The issue was indeed a botched format of some kind. I say this because, when I put the USB drive in my laptop, I had two UFS partitions, no ZFS partitions, and a whole lot of free space. I used a nifty (and expensive) program called Active@ Undelete to make a full volume image, so if any data is desired, it can be provided upon request.

I wiped all the partitions in Disk Management, and put it back in the NAS for reinstallation.

One VERY notable difference in the CD installer is that there's no form of progress indication during the installation. I thought the installer had frozen, or there was some sort of issue with my DVD drive, or similar. I tried it again, and incidentally got a phone call that took my attention away from the NAS. When I came back, I got an 'install complete' indicator. Personally, I'm not picky about the status indication, even a raw 'bytes written' counter is fine by me, but that tripped me up.

Once installed, FreeNAS autodetected my storage pool and imported it. Sidebar feature request: if the wizard finds an existing ZFS pool, it might be a worthwhile step to add to the wizard to prompt for a config to be imported at that time. I didn't add any shares. One thing I wasn't sure about was which Directory Service to pick. I know I'm not using Active Directory, and NT4 seemed not-right, so I multiple-guessed LDAP. So far so good; my users populated and permissions seem to be right.

Thus, my 24-scary-hours without a NAS have concluded. For anyone having this issue, the make-or-break question regarding how screwed you are is whether you've got a copy of your config file. As long as you've got that config file, you can safely(ish) blow away your existing FreeNAS flash drive installation and install the 9.3 beta.

Thanks guys,
Joey