[Solved] Config migration btw diff devices:Stuck on "Loading /boot/loader.conf"

[Grossartig]

I received a brand new NUC-C3L4 (a clone of the Protectli FW4B).

Transferred my 32GB mSATA SSD from my old Protectli FW4A to it and it booted into 22.1.6 fine.

Then decided to start with a clean slate, installed OPNsense from USB stick, imported old config during the graphical portion of the installer, and at the end told the device to reboot. Now it's stuck at the below screen.

I repeated the install multiple times, each time with the same result.

I find it puzzling that the device was able to boot from the old installation before I decided to reinstall from scratch.

Thoughts?

P.S.: UFS with the guided installation method

[Grossartig]

Point of clarification: I followed the instructions here to change to UEFI only mode in AMI Bios (see here: https://protectli.com/kb/how-to-install-opnsense-on-the-vault/).

I can boot from a USB stick fine (i.e. OPNsense installer or Ubuntu), for what it's worth.

[Grossartig]

I tested a lot more permutations of different settings during installation, but in the end concluded that the issue is the import of the old settings. If I don't do a config import, the device boots up fine. Otherwise it gets stuck on the boot screen as per above screenshot.

The device I am importing the config from had onboard SSD storage, so I couldn't take it out. Instead, I did an rsync of the entire root "/" to a FAT32 USB stick. So that stick has more than just the "/conf" folder on it. And that's what I did the config import from, which always concluded with "success". But apparently there's something on there that throws off the installation enough for it to not boot.

[Grossartig]

So really the only way for me to restore the configuration between two different device models was to *not* use the graphical config importer at installation time, but to restore the config.xml from the OPNsense Web UI after installation. I found no other way to do the config import until after a fresh installation.

Also, if migrating between different models, it seems important to edit the config.xml file to adjust the interface names beforehand.

EDIT: All of the above is wrong. I thought it wasn't booting correctly but the real issue was that that configuration was set to only have serial output, no VGA output. I thought it was stuck booting, but it wasn't -- it booted fine, I just didn't see it on the attached screen. Duh.