Bug 228731

Summary:	11.2-Beta3 fails to boot: legacy mode ZFS
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	fred.ha11
Component:	kern	Assignee:	freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status:	Closed Works As Intended
Severity:	Affects Some People	CC:	admin
Priority:	---	Keywords:	regression
Version:	11.1-STABLE
Hardware:	amd64
OS:	Any

Description fred.ha11 2018-06-04 01:10:09 UTC

Background:
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System was originally installed with an 11.0 CD. At the time I tried to get UEFI to work, but ended up booting in legacy/BIOS mode. Upgrading to 11.1 was uneventful. The system has a single SSD with full disk encryption and ZFS. Again, nothing special, just the user selectable install options from the 11.0 CD.

Current Failure:
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After running "freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.2-BETA3" the system failed on reboot. Disk encryption keys can be entered, boot prompt appears, boot starts but fails at ZFS. Reboots with no info sent to the console.

Luckily, selecting kernel.old at the boot prompt works fine.

Any ideas? Need more info? What can I do to help track down the bug?

Thank you

Comment 1 Andriy Gapon freebsd_committer

2018-06-04 06:26:14 UTC

(In reply to dsamms from comment #0)
> boot starts but fails at ZFS

Could you please expand this?

Comment 2 fred.ha11 2018-06-04 15:21:57 UTC

(In reply to Andriy Gapon from comment #1)

I would like to give more info and the problem is 100% repeatable so your suggestions on debugging are welcome.

On boot, the console scrolls normally till a line beginning with ZFS, then the computer reboots instantly without displaying any more info. (black screen)

If On reboot I select kernel.old, the computer boot successfully.

Comment 3 fred.ha11 2018-06-04 20:50:44 UTC

I had also opened a thread in the stable mailing list 

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2018-June/089073.html

The problem is NOT a kernel bug, but related to the loading of optional kernel modules that needed recompiling. 

Commenting out ALL port based kernel modules in both /boot/looder and /etc/rc.conf fully resolved the problem. I was running both Nvidia and VirtualBox as well as CBSD. I did not think the modules were the problem as the crash happened so early in the boot sequence and gave ZERO explanation for the crash.

Would suggest "we" make it clear in the upgrade instructions to disable ALL optional kernel modules. I expect Nvidia to fail and require a recompile before working with a new version of FreeBSD, but in the past I have always been able to boot to single user mode.