pfSense » pfSense Packages

Should not have happened. Did you verify that you had "_Keep Settings on Deinstall_" checked on the GLOBAL SETTINGS tab before you upgraded? I can't remember for sure, but the default may be to not save settings on an uninstall. Since an upgrade first removes all packages and then reinstalls them, if the box was not checked the settings would have been lost.

Thanks, I was unaware that this package re-installation behavior happens on upgrades. That setting was indeed off. (In the light of this it may make sense to have it default enabled but of course I don't know why this default was chosen in the first place.)

Either way this was indeed a case of operator error so it's a non-issue and this bug report is invalid.