FreeNAS starts but does not finish booting - vertical white lines on monitor

[grahambunce]

Hi... and help?

I'm a 100% FreeNAS and Linux noob so I hope you can help. My FreeNAS has been running fine for months but about a week after the last update (9.10-STABLE) it dropped off the network. When I booted it back up, it starts the boot process fine, waits on one of my disks (I think), clears the screen really fast, flashes some more text and then locks up. When it locks up, the screen is filled with white vertical bars so I can't see anything that was on the screen prior.

I tried using a previous install but these fail in the same way.

Maybe it's my USB boot drive (SanDisk Cruzer) that's gone, but then it does actually start booting.

I had a failed disk a few months ago, replaced it and rebuild the array fine.... though it was odd in that the failed disk locked up the FreeNAS boot sequence completely (i.e.FreeNAS wouldn't actually start until I took the drive out).... this may be normal behaviour, or a red herring.

I don't really know how to get access to the boot log. I've tried booting into grub command console instead, but none of the commands make any sense :(

Obviously concerned about my data if I need to rebuild the FreeNAS system - these are on a ZFS RAID 10 but can a new FreeNAS install just pick up the array as if it was any other disk?

Really not sure where to start until I can get hold of the boot log to find out what command (if any) is causing FreeNAS to lock up...

btw, running on a HP N54L microserver with 8GB RAM, and 4 2TB desktop grade hard disks, additional USB3 PCI card (in case it may now be causing a conflict?)

Many thanks

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

waits on one of my disks

Have you tried booting with that disk disconnected?

Maybe it's my USB boot drive

Could be, may as well try a new one.

can a new FreeNAS install just pick up the array

Yes.

 

[grahambunce]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. Troubleshooting steps so far:

Removed each HD in turn and booted = same results
Removed all HD and booted = same results
Removed additional USB 3.0 card = same results
Create new USB boot stick installer and tried to install FreeNAS on an SSD drive instead of a USB = same results

The last one is worrying.... I've tried to recreate my FreeNAS install using 9.10-STABLE, and the installer starts but then *it itself* crashes, with the "white lines of death".

This suggests to me that there is a fundamental problem with the N54L box itself, as a clean install attempt doesn't work either.


From this, a couple of questions:

It is possible to boot FreeNAS / the installer in "line by line" mode? i.e. like you used to be able to do with Windows, where you needed to confirm each step of the boot? My problem is that the screen scrolls so fast before the "white lines of death" appear that I can't see what the failing command was just before the UI is completely blocked out. I don't really know how to get access to a boot log for diagnostics.

Can I move the ZFS disks to another PC (not a N54L) and try installing FreeNAS on that, without damaging the array?

Thanks

 

[gpsguy]

There's no need to move the disks to do the install.

You can do the install on a flash drive or SSD, using another computer and move the boot device back to your Microserver. Ensure that it boots up on this other machine, even if you don't have any disks attached to it.

Do you remember what version of FreeNAS you were running, before the upgrade? You might try reinstalling that version, instead of the latest.

Out of curiosity, why are you using the USB3 PCI card for? Hopefully, you aren't thinking about adding USB hard disks to your server.

Can I move the ZFS disks to another PC (not a N54L) and try installing FreeNAS on that, without damaging the array?

 

[DrKK]

I would say some crucial piece of hardware is fried. I experienced something very similar to what you are describing when I was building my friend an AMD A8 APU box, and the memory I was using was fried.

I would say some piece of hardware---and my guess would be power supply, or memory---could be the culprit.

 

[grahambunce]

Thanks for the replies. I will try to build FreeNAS on my other box, see what happens, and report back.

> why are you using the USB3 PCI card for

tbh, I had a spare card and stuck it in. I was considering using it as a backup disk to auto-backup from the FreeNAS array to it... but I'd never got round it it. I took it out as a process of elimination, in case it had started to cause a USB conflict with my original USB SanDisk flash drive.

As matter of interest, it's been a little confusing how to set that kind of system up; i.e. an auto incremental-backup from the RAID array to a USB3/e-SATA external drive (e.g. sort of like Apple Time Machine). Is that possible out-of-the box?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Can I move the ZFS disks to another PC (not a N54L) and try installing FreeNAS on that, without damaging the array?

Yes, you can.

incremental-backup from the RAID array to a USB3/e-SATA external drive

You can do this with snapshot replication, using localhost as the destination.