odd issue, locks only during a reboot.

[Dicara]

Hi All,

I finally made the move from m0n0wall to OPNSense after buying a new chassis that could support it

I'm getting an odd issue if i reboot it, basically it wont reboot, during the O/S load it just locks up at the same place every time. but if i turn off/shutdown the O/S and then power it on it boots every time.

While this is not an issue, as the O/S will almost never been rebooted. i through I'd ask anyway.

if this helps the chassis specs are:

i5 660
Intel DH55TC MB
8GB Ram 4x2GB
2x 64GB SSDs
one for O/S the other for SWAP @ 32GB and the rest Spare/Future use
/tmp & /var/tmp have been configured at tmpfs
2x Intel Gigabit CT NICs

[weust]

I notice that only one of you NICs is detected?
Based on the MAC address, can you determine which one it is?
The MAC address is probably printed on a sticker on the card it self, and just maybe a faulty card is causing a hang of your system.

Purely for testing and ruling out defective hardware, unplug the one that's not detected, and see if it boots alright.
Also, on the boot when it doesn't hang, does it show both NICs being detected? Do you see a em0 and em1?

[Dicara]

Hi Weust,

I'l try the suggestion of the Nics to see if one of them is the issue but all 3x are working/tested/used, the on-board one shows up as em1 which im using as wan, and for the 2x pcie nics are em0 & em2, where em0 is the Lan and em2 is Opt1.

it only hangs during a reboot though and every reboot so far as the same place in the image i uploaded.
but if i do a cold boot/full shutdown/remove the power, it boots first time every time.

i've tried booting of usb/knoppix and winpe to see if they also have the same issue to see if its the hardware but they boot/reboot so far with out issues.

[weust]

Ah, thought you just had the two CT NICs. Wasn't thinking about the onboard one (didn't look up the board).
But even then I would expect all three to be detected/shows in the image you posted. And it shows only one.

Is the MAC address you see in the image of the onboard NIC?

I had something similar in the past, and I run mine as a virtual machine on Hyper-V 2012 R2.
But iirc that was mainly about clock screw stuff.
First boot would throw out a lot of messages, and a reboot didn't... No idea what that is.

There might also just be a bug in FreeBSD. You could try to install just the basic hardware (motherboard, CPU, one SSD) and install FreeBSD alone. If that works, add a NIC, and another NIC.

Also keep in mind that knoppix int BSD. Its Linux. Different drives, different approaches no doubt.

[Dicara]

the mac shown in the image is the first Pci-e nic which im using as the lan connection.

it is showing all 3x nics in the web interface and im able to use them, could the other nic's be shown earlier or later during boot as the image shown is of where it freezes during a reboot.

[weust]

But that freeze is after only one NIC is detected/displayed, and has gone on to the ATA controller.
That would indicate something going wrong there. No idea why though...

Maybe I'm focussing too much on the NICs. I just find it weird it shows only one, but when it does boot properly you see all three in the webGUI.

[Dicara]

could it be the onboard nic? as it see's the first pci-e card as em0 and em1, which is listed as the onboard nic in the web gui? mayby when its restarting the mainboard isnt shutting it down correctly or initallizing it the same as when it does a cold boot?

[weust]

Could try switching things a bit if you disable the onboard one in the BIOS or UEFI.
Worth a try.

[franco]

It looks like it's stuck in the kernel bootup, rc hasn't taken over yet. This hints to acpi issues or maybe (s)ata controller compatibility mode. Try to disable such things in BIOS and see if the that helps. Not sure how to fix this, maybe FreeBSD 10.2 helps with this. We're only a few weeks away from going there, but there is no way easy way to debug this. A quick search for the issue did not turn up anything.

[Dicara]

Hi Franco/weust,

I've just tried each Nic one by one to the point where there were no nics at all even the onboard way disabled and stil the same issue.
i tried the sata controller changing it between ata and achi, no luck
and switching between uefi and std bios, again no luck

[weust]

Very strange then. BIOS/UEFI and firmwares up to date?
And have you trued installing FreeBSD yourself to see how that boots?

[franco]

It could also be the disk itself, but it's almost impossible to debug this without the hardware and a few debug kernel builds to narrow the issue down. Sorry.