Upgrade from 9.3 to 9.10 continuous reboot

[Brian Blater]

Just finished upgrading my SuperMicro FreeNAS from 9.3 stable to 9.10.1 u3 stable after upgrading IBM m1015 cards to P20. First few times I tried to do the upgrade, the system would never finish the upgrade and reboot right after erasing and reformatting the USB stick. I figured maybe I had bad media, so grabbed another copy of the install media and this time it went through the process to the end.

I rebooted and removed the install media, but every time in gets to loading EM4 network card and after a minute or so it reboots. No idea what the problem is at this point. The system was running fine under 9.3.

System:
SuperMicro dual CPU with 16GB RAM
2 IBM M1015 cards in IT mode
8 @ 1 TB SATA drives
8 @ 1 TB SAS drives

Your help is greatly appreciated as I'm dead in the water now.

Brian

 

[Ericloewe]

Why -U3? Try -U4.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

It might make sense to do a sanity check by reverting to 9.3 and make sure that still works properly. If so, backup the config database and restore it to a clean install of 9.10.

 

[Brian Blater]

So far nothing has worked. I tried U4 and it didn't complete the install. I sent back to 9.3 and it won't install either for some odd reason.

I did do a backup before starting down this path, so maybe I try a fresh install.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

9.3 and it won't install either

OK, so the problem likely has nothing to do with the attempted upgrade. That's the reason for a sanity check.

Have you tried a brand new USB stick?

Don't forget to checksum the ISO downloads.

 

[Brian Blater]

I beginning to think it is hardware also. I've tried new USB sticks. I've tried new media and downloads. I've tried a new cdrom drive.

So far with 9.3 I've been able to get through the whole install, but every time it gets to the 4th ethernet car it does its dhcpdiscover multiple times and then reboots. Everytime!

I've removed the hard drives from the server, no change. This time I've disconnected the network cards from the switch and we'll see what happens then.

 

[Brian Blater]

Ok, one step ahead. Looks like we may have a faulty NIC as removing the cables from the switch for each of the cards got me booted up.

 

[Brian Blater]

When doing a restore, do you want to do a complete restore? I wasn't asked any questions like that when doing the backup, so not sure the difference.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

When doing a restore, do you want to do a complete restore? I wasn't asked any questions like that when doing the backup, so not sure the difference.

You might be confusing the full system restore with the configuration database restore. It's the latter you want, and you'll find it on the System -> General tab in the form of the Upload Config button.

EDIT: I'm assuming you did a configuration backup (System -> General -> Save Config), not a full system backup.

 

[Brian Blater]

You might be confusing the full system restore with the configuration database restore. It's the latter you want, and you'll find it on the System -> General tab in the form of the Upload Config button.

EDIT: I'm assuming you did a configuration backup (System -> General -> Save Config), not a full system backup.

From the console I chose option 11 "Create backup"

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

From the console I chose option 11

That's a system backup. It saves the data, but I don't know if it saves the configuration database.

 

[Brian Blater]

That's a system backup. It saves the data, but I don't know if it saves the configuration database.

Well, bummer. Learned something new. I'll use the backup config from now on. Now I'm just fighting a bad drive and hopefully then I will have my data back.