All working fine on 9.2.1.9 and I have reverted back to this while I work out what the issues are.
Scenarios are:
1. Upgrading from GUI fails. Initially it is because the USB is left disconnected from the motherboard but a power-cycle solves that. However the USB boot is still left at a blinking cursor. No error messages were apparent in the console window or in the few lines visible on GUI console window.
2. Installing from CD fails (tried several different CD drives and cable combinations from working systems as well as writing the CD from both Mac and Windows systems). Freshly formatted 32GB USB (tried several from different manufacturers). The USB boot device is created (da6, da6p1, da6p2) and active set on da6. The last message I get is the base-os-9.3-CURRENT-f35d46c-3b4abc3-109b881 message and the system takes a couple of minutes before it reboots. The resulting boot is a blinking cursor.
3. Installing from USB to another USB fails. As per scenario 2, with added messages about creating files and then the same reboot issues.
Hardware is SuperMicro X7DWA-N with 2x Intel E5420 chips and 32GB ECC DDR2-667 memory. Additional IBM M1015 raid card in jbod mode installed supporting a total of 11x1.5TB drives in RaidZ3 with hot spares. The system does not support USB3 and EFI BIOS enhancements are turned off.
Since this is older hardware, I am wondering is there is an incompatibility with the new FreeNAS boot mechanism and the way it is being written to USB. I have tested the system booting from USB with various Linux distributions and Windows as well as the 9.3 installer with no problem.
Many thanks for your work and any help you can offer. I am happy to perform further testing based upon your suggestions.
Scenarios are:
1. Upgrading from GUI fails. Initially it is because the USB is left disconnected from the motherboard but a power-cycle solves that. However the USB boot is still left at a blinking cursor. No error messages were apparent in the console window or in the few lines visible on GUI console window.
2. Installing from CD fails (tried several different CD drives and cable combinations from working systems as well as writing the CD from both Mac and Windows systems). Freshly formatted 32GB USB (tried several from different manufacturers). The USB boot device is created (da6, da6p1, da6p2) and active set on da6. The last message I get is the base-os-9.3-CURRENT-f35d46c-3b4abc3-109b881 message and the system takes a couple of minutes before it reboots. The resulting boot is a blinking cursor.
3. Installing from USB to another USB fails. As per scenario 2, with added messages about creating files and then the same reboot issues.
Hardware is SuperMicro X7DWA-N with 2x Intel E5420 chips and 32GB ECC DDR2-667 memory. Additional IBM M1015 raid card in jbod mode installed supporting a total of 11x1.5TB drives in RaidZ3 with hot spares. The system does not support USB3 and EFI BIOS enhancements are turned off.
Since this is older hardware, I am wondering is there is an incompatibility with the new FreeNAS boot mechanism and the way it is being written to USB. I have tested the system booting from USB with various Linux distributions and Windows as well as the 9.3 installer with no problem.
Many thanks for your work and any help you can offer. I am happy to perform further testing based upon your suggestions.
