Boot loop updating from 11.0-U3 to U4

[MExcel]

Hi everyone,

I have a FreeNAS server running from a USB 3.0 flash drive (config file is backed up). Yesterday I attempted to update from 11.0-U3 to U4 (a seemingly minor update), however, the machine now does not boot. It reaches the boot config screen where disks are detected reporting 6 bootable devices (these are the 6 x 8TB disks being used as storage by FreeNAS) but then simply loops back to the start of the boot sequence apparently not finding the USB flash drive.
The machine is less than one year old and as this occoured after an update I doubt it is a hardware error.

Thanks for any help.

Machine:

Supermicro X10SLL-F with Dual Gigabit LAN
E3 1220 V3 Intel Quad-Core Xeon 3.1GHz 8Mb Cache 5GT/s 80Watts
4x 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 ECC CL11 DIMM with Thermal Sensor
LSI 9211-4i Host Bus Adaptor 4i (Non RAID)
6x 8TB Seagate Energy-Efficient High-Density Archive Hard Drive
SuperTalent 32GB RC4 USB 3.0 OS drive
10GbE Dual-Port RJ45 Server Adapter - Intel X540T2

 

[dlavigne]

It's possible the stick died. Does installing U4 on a different stick and uploading your config resolve it?

 

[MExcel]

It's possible the stick died. Does installing U4 on a different stick and uploading your config resolve it?

Thanks for the response. I will try that when I next get to the server, however, I doubt it due to it being fairly new and that it happened as I updated it, seems a bit of a coincidence. Of course, conversely, an update will be doing a fair bit of IO on the stick which could have been when the failure occurred.

Is it a recommended practice to have two duplicate USB sticks for the OS?

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Is it a recommended practice to have two duplicate USB sticks for the OS?

Short answer: Improves situation somewhat, but still isn't optimal. Longer answer: See section "Boot Devices" in the Hardware Recommendations Guide.

 

[Inxsible]

Did you also change some other config like adding a disk or changing the ports of the data disk? I have seen AMI Bioses default to the SATA0 drive as the boot drive if you add or move disks from 1 port to another. Both my Tyan S5533 and my Supermicro X9SCL-F have AMI bioses and they keep doing that. It drives me nuts.

You might have to go into the BIOS and set the USB as your boot drive -- save the BIOS as "Save User Defaults" or something similar to that effect for it to stick across boots.

The other option is to simply disable every boot device other than your USB drive.

 

[norbs]

This issue has been popping up all over the place and no real fixes. Happens to me since 11 was released. Only fix for me has been to reinstall (as an update) and hope next update doesn't break it. I found moving to single boot volume has seemed to make it more reliable.