pfSense

I encountered the same pfSense CE 2.8.1 -> 2.9.0 upgrade failure on two separate PC Engines APU2D4 systems.

Hardware:
- PC Engines APU2D4
- AMD GX-412TC
- 4 GB RAM
- UFS
- amd64
- Starting version: pfSense CE 2.8.1-RELEASE

The first upgrade stage completed and installed the 2.9.0 base system, boot files and kernel:
pfSense-base: 2.8.1 -> 2.9.0
pfSense-boot: 2.9.0
pfSense-kernel-pfSense: 2.9.0

The upgrade then announced:

System is going to be upgraded. Rebooting now.

The reboot/post-reboot upgrade stage did not complete successfully.

Afterwards the system was left in a mixed 2.8.1 / 2.9.0 state.

Actual running system:

uname -K
    1600018

uname -U
    1600018

freebsd-version -kru
    16.0-CURRENT
    16.0-CURRENT
    16.0-CURRENT

sysctl -n kern.osreldate
    1600018

But pfSense still reported:

cat /etc/version
    2.8.1-RELEASE

Installed core packages showed:

pfSense-2.8.1
    pfSense-base-2.9.0
    pfSense-boot-2.9.0
    pfSense-kernel-pfSense-2.9.0

The pkg configuration was also inconsistent:

/usr/local/etc/pkg.conf

ABI=FreeBSD:16:amd64
    OSVERSION=1600000

while the actually running FreeBSD userland was:

kern.osreldate = 1600018

As a result, the official 2.9.0 repository could not be processed:

Newer FreeBSD version for package zip:
    - package: 1600018
    - running userland: 1600000

pkg-static: repository pfSense contains packages for wrong OS version
    Unable to update repository pfSense
    Error updating repositories!

The GUI Package Manager consequently displayed:

There are no packages currently installed.

The installed packages were still present in the local pkg database.

After manually changing:

OSVERSION=1600000

to:

OSVERSION=1600018

and correcting the repository configuration, this succeeded:

pkg-static update -f

All repositories are up to date.

and:

pfSense-upgrade -d -c

returned:

2.9.0 version of pfSense is available

The same upgrade failure occurred on two independent APU2D4 CE systems.

A clean installation of CE 2.9.0 on the same APU2D4 hardware works with Installer 1.2 when using the J20 USB port, so the hardware itself is capable of running CE 2.9.0 / FreeBSD 16.

Expected result:
The 2.8.1 -> 2.9.0 upgrade should complete successfully after reboot and leave the system fully on 2.9.0 with pkg OSVERSION matching kern.osreldate.

Actual result:
The package upgrade completes, the reboot/post-reboot upgrade stage fails, and the system is left partially upgraded with FreeBSD 16 / pfSense 2.9.0 core components but pfSense 2.8.1 metadata and an incorrect pkg OSVERSION.