Upgrade from 9.3 to 9.10 results in perpetual reboot cycle

[MarkS-Indy]

I recently tried to upgrade from 9.3 (STABLE) to 9.10 (STABLE) after having to do a re-install of 9.3. I was running 9.10 when things went south and the only config file I had on backup was from 9.3. After a successful re-install of 9.3, I wanted to upgrade to 9.10 on my way to upgrading to 11. The upgrade appeared to go alright, but the system went into a constant reboot cycle. After the many, many reboots, I decided that something was not right and interrupted the cycle and booted back into 9.3.

Any ideas/suggestions on what is happening here? Perhaps I should upgrade directly to 11 and skip 9.10 altogether? I want to do whatever is best without the risk of losing my zpool.

Thanks for any help. If more info is needed, let me know.

 

[Ericloewe]

Could be a borked upgrade, possibly due to a crap boot device. Are you using USB flash drives for boot?

 

[MarkS-Indy]

The upgrade claimed to be completed without error. I am using an SSD. I was previously using USB flash drives, but they both became unusable after I inadvertently shut off the power to the server, hence the rollback to 9.3.
So, should I try to do another upgrade to 9.10, or pass on that and go directly to 11? I do not want to do anything that will jeopardize the zpool.

 

[Ericloewe]

You can try 11 directly, it should work.

 

[MarkS-Indy]

I would feel more confident with a "it will work without putting your zpool at risk", instead of a "it should work".

 

[Ericloewe]

It's an operation independent from your data pool. Things would have to go very wrong for it to be affected.

Actually, that reminds me. Definitely update to the latest version of 11.1. Earlier versions of 11.0 had some fairly nasty bugs that could destroy pools on accident. It's easily recoverable if they're not encrypted, but still a pain in the ass.