no reboot with 17.7 on APU 1C4

[thies]

Dear all,

for some time now I have been trying to switch from pfsense to opnsense for various reasons.

The used hardware is a bit older, an APU 1C4 with 16 GB mSATA SSD.
It runs with pfsense for years without problems.

Unfortunately, I can't get the APU.1C4 work with actual opnsense despite intensive research and several attempts.

Recently there have been repeated reports of problems with the APU hardware (and BSD 11), but so far I haven't found something that hits me exactly.
However, I am not an expert in this field, so it is possible that I have overlooked something.
By the way, BIOS of the APU is flashed to the newest available version.

The installation with the current 17.7.5 installation image (serial, amd64) via USB works fine.
The installer also writes the image to the SSD and the reboot from the SSD works without problems.
(without plugin os-boot-delay or other special settings)

The boot process works until the installed version 17.7.5 is updated to 17.7.8 or 17.7.10 .
After updating, the machine is not booting anymore.
I apologize for writing this from my memory and have no exact message available.
The Error message was something like: No bootable disk.
So it seems, that the BIOS doesn't recognize the GPT?
I couldn't find anything which could help in this situation.
For me it seems that the GPT or something else needed for booting is written erroneous to the SSD.

However, if you start the console (in a running opnsense 17.7.5 without any other update) and switch with 
opnsense-update -t opnsense-devel
to the current development branch (believe it was 18.1-b199), then the reboot works fine!!
However, with this version the web GUI is no longer accessible so I decided not to follow the devel-branch anyway.

I am wondering, if anybody out there is able to get this run on a APU 1C4?

If a additional tests would be helpfull, I will try to do.

Cheers,
Thies

[franco]

Hi,

> It runs with pfsense for years without problems.

The problem you describe should be in the latest pfSense as well as it is with FreeBSD 11 in general.

You probably mean:

https://github.com/opnsense/core/commit/8e85edd41

This change is on opnsense-devel, but not in the 17.7.x releases.


Cheers,
Franco

[thies]

Hi Franco,

indeed this is very strange for me.

With pfsense (currently I am on 2.4.2 -> FreeBSD 11) such settings were not necessary.

As i understood, this  (/boot/devices.hints)

Code: [Select]

hint.ahci.0.msi="0"
hint.ahci.1.msi="0"would  switch off the AHCI for serial ATA.
I read about that in a thread about APU 2C4 and USB issues AND opnsense V17.7.5 - this is the version where I have no problems...
Anyway, I tried this already, but this did not worked for me.
I cannot verify (no reboot...), but it is reported that a manual change in /boot/hint.devices will be overwritten by a subsequently update.

Is there a possibility to leave this setting in an other way, so that it will survive an update?
And, I am wondering, does this setting really influence the way that the BIOS will access the GPT?


Regards,
Thies

[franco]

Hm, can you run this on your OPNsense real quick?

# uname -a


Thanks,
Franco

[thies]

Hi,

sorry, have no remote access, will do it tonight.

CU,
Thies

[thies]

Hi,

output of
# uname -a
is as follows:

FreeBSD WestTor.localdomain 11.0-RELEASE-p12 FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p12 #0 02581be96(stable/17.7): Sat Aug 26 11:00:39 CEST 2017     
root@sensey64:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SMP  amd64


Boot-cycle output with 17.7.5:

*** FINAL System shutdown message from root@WestTor.localdomain ***

System going down IMMEDIATELY


Dec 18 19:59:25 lighttpd[71224]: (server.c.1828) server stopped by UID = 0 PID = 77955
Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process `vnlru' to stop... done
Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process `bufdaemon' to stop... done
Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process `syncer' to stop...
Syncing disks, vnodes remaining... 6 4 0 done
All buffers synced.
Uptime: 21m4s
PC Engines APU BIOS build date: Sep  8 2014
Total memory 4096 MB
AMD G-T40E Processor
CPU MHz=1000
Press F10 key now for boot menu:
drive 0x000f2a90: PCHS=16383/16/63 translation=lba LCHS=1024/255/63 s=31248704
Booting from Hard Disk...
//bboooott//ccoonnffiigg::  --SS111155220000  --DD

Consoles: internal video/keyboard  serial port
BIOS drive C: is disk0
BIOS 639kB/3653944kB available memory

FreeBSD/x86 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(root@sensey64, Sat Aug 26 10:46:58 CEST 2017)
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf



If anything else would be helpful, please let me know.

Edit:
Found something in the putty-logs with 17.7.10, maybe just a phantom:

Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process `vnlru' to stop... done
Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process `bufdaemon' to stop... done
Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process `syncer' to stop...
Syncing disks, vnodes remaining... 0 0 done
All buffers synced.
Uptime: 13m56s
PC Engines APU BIOS build date: Sep  8 2014
Total memory 4096 MB
AMD G-T40E Processor
CPU MHz=1000
Press F10 key now for boot menu:
drive 0x000f2a90: PCHS=16383/16/63 translation=lba LCHS=1024/255/63 s=31248704
Booting from Hard Disk...
Boot failed: not a bootable disk


It's just a assumption, because I don't see anything else: message
Syncing disks...
is different..
Is it possible that the synchronization at the end of the shutdown is faulty, and I am looking for at the wrong end of the cycle?
What I did not mentioned until now: The installer is able to read the configuration from ssd, even it is not bootable...

Regards,
Thies

[franco]

Hi Thies,

Hmm so you are running FreeBSD 11.0 and opnsense-devel, which means the fix that I originally posted is most likely the one you're looking for. The opnsense-devel code will automatically become the 18.1-RC and subsequently 18.1 code.

You can try to reproduce by flipping the settings or trying them on a 17.7.x install. But if it works for you now, it will work in the future.


Cheers,
Franco

[thies]

Hi Franco,

I didn't express me correctly:
18.1 boots without problems, but the web GUI was no longer accessible.
Because I didn't want to open a new field, I went back to 17.7.5.

Today the following has been set up from scratch, as discussed here
https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=6366.0 (thanks to mossi2000 and you)

So the changes were made in /boot/loader.conf.local
(maybe useful for someone else):
- Boot from memstick (press F10 in BIOS to select USB stick)
- No configuration of interfaces
- DO NOT login as installer NOW - but as root
- select [8] shell
- cd /boot
- mount -o rw /
- echo 'hint.ahci.0.msi="0"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
- echo 'hint.ahci.1.msi="0"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
- exit
- select [6] for reboot

Remarkable: reboot was faster now (or just an imagination???)

After this, an installation from USB to SSD as usual.

Meanwhile I updated to 17.7.10 without any probs!

Thank u all,
Thies

[thies]

Dear all,

short update to this issue: Last evening after power cut same problem occured again.

Code: [Select]

Booting from Hard Disk...
Boot failed: not a bootable disk

Can anybody give a hint for further research?

BR,
Thies