pfSense

i tested also the new build, 20201001.0650
after the reboot done by the upgrade process you don't lose access to the WebGUI but if you reboot again it does not boot anymore

As per the linked Netgate forum thread, is this only affecting those with vlans on laggs?

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=240609

Any lagg issue is unrelated to this. This is failing to boot at all only on EFI installs.

Any posts in that thread about lagg are irrelevant and should be in their own thread.

pfSense-CE-2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT-amd64-latest.iso.gz 06-Oct-2020 05:13 536447915

still not working on my esxi 7.0

upgrading fail to boot
new install fail to boot

Manuel Piovan wrote:

pfSense-CE-2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT-amd64-latest.iso.gz 06-Oct-2020 05:13 536447915

still not working on my esxi 7.0

upgrading fail to boot
new install fail to boot

Hello Manuel!

Since the problem is not happening on all environments, it's hard for us to reproduce. Would it be possible for you to download this FreeBSD ISO file and check if the same error occours?

https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/12.2/FreeBSD-12.2-RC1-amd64-bootonly.iso

Thank you

same problem,
the installation complete successfully,
also pfsense
but when I reboot it stop like on the screenshot

Manuel Piovan wrote:

same problem,
the installation complete successfully,
also pfsense
but when I reboot it stop like on the screenshot

Thanks! Can you try a final test to help us to isolate the affected versions? A recent FreeBSD 13-CURRENT snapshot

http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/13.0/FreeBSD-13.0-CURRENT-amd64-20201001-e18fc94e525-bootonly.iso

FYI, There are more at least one person reporting it on FreeBSD mailing lists

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2020-September/092736.html

the installation from the iso of FreeBSD-13.0-CURRENT does not even start, it stop on the boot menu with the same error

i found a solution that worked for me for pfsense 2.5.0 and efi,
use SATA controller and remove the default SCSI controller
I don't need to mess with the efibootmgr and I can reboot as many times as I like

i still didn't found a solution for freebsd 13 but I think it's out of the scope for now

workaround... to boot freebsd 13 iso I have to go to the loader prompt and call show/efi-show and scroll down all pages and then boot... at every reboot even after installation complete

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=209821

Some additional information related to VirtualBox & EFI boot problems:

I have two boxes, both built with VB 6.x & pfSense 2.5.0, and both are EFI boot. These boxes were initial built with previous versions of both VB & pfSense 2.5.0 (don't have the exact versions I used for the builds), and have been booting fine until I had issues with the EFI boot after update, as described here; and only where able to fully update after the removal of INVARIANTS. (I tried multiple interim update revisions; thank goodness for snapshots.)

But I have also been going back to try and recreate fresh rebuilds of my boxes, and I am now finding that I can not boot both pfSense 2.5.0 and multiple versions of FreeBSD, in EFI mode under VB.

I have gone back to just testing FreeBSD with 11.4, 12.0, 12.1, 12.2-RC1, and 13.0 and none will boot with EFI enabled under VB 6.1.14. However the exact same guest configuration, changing nothing but the iso, (including keeping OS settings at BSD/FreeBSD-64), will boot Ubuntu server 20.04 with EFI enabled, with no problem.

In addition to the FreeBSD EFI boot bug noted previously there is a VB bug report of FreeBSD 12.1 not booting under VB 6.1.14: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/19910

From recall, VB updated their EFI firmware support, starting with version 6.1.0, that added EFI NVRAM write support, that fixed the Debian / Ubuntu EFI boot failure after initial install problems, due to not being able to write EFI nvram settings; and further changes EFI support since. (Previously when Debian based systems tried to write (non- default / standard) boot info to the EFI nvram it was ignored / lost, resulting in a no boot partition found on reboot; however other OS that used (VB) default EFI boot configs did not have issue. (I mention this because it's now possible for EFI nvram data to be written / saved in a VB guest, that were previously ignored / not saved, under previous versions of VB, such that newer OS updates are now able to write settings to EFI nvram, that were previously ignored / lost.)

In short, currently, both pfSense & FreeBSD, no longer boot in EFI mode, with the current 6.1.14 release of VirtualBox, which seems to be related to recent changes in VB's EFI support.

some other reports popped out on FreeBSD
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=244906
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=250580

Another one: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=251866

This one has a good idea of the cause, and a two-line patch that works (on VMware in my case).

sorry, i didn't noticed a notification for this,
i was able to try ISO [datastore1] pfSense-CE-2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT-amd64-20210102-0250.iso

and i can confirm that the problem is solved

multiple reboot / halt and start, works like a charm
esxi 7.0 Update 1 / vm ->freebsd 12 64 bit EFI