freebsd stable - Jan 2004 - Install bug - 4.9 stable - post install circular reboot

I can confirm an issue posted Dec 3rd, freebsd-stable maillist, titled
"4.9 install buglet".

I experience this bug running the install (various configurations) 100%
of the time.  After install, after system reboot, the boot loader comes
up with F1: FreeBSD, and reboots continually forever.  To test, I made 3
installs without issue using 4.8.  So first, I'd like to confirm the bug
report, and ask the following.

In his "buglet" post, Ian noted the following work around.
> Work around.  Force write in label screen (or rewrite MBR
> and label post reboot)
Looking at fdisk, and the label utility I see nothing option along these
lines.  Could someone explain to me what/how to do this?

Has anyone else seen this apparently prevalent issue?  Is a fix likely,
or do these kind of things just slip by?  I did not expect this from a
'stable' release.

Unfortunately, I'm making my second attempt at evaluating FreeBSD (last
time I used an active box - and got frustrated with bad ports, MySQL/BSD
issues, and needed to get the box online, so I installed something that
worked).  I'm interested in BSD's lean-ness, and other aspects, as
opposed to other "nix'es".  Needless to say, testing again using
4.9
this time hasn't been very impressive.

On Tue, 17 Apr 2018 at 09:10 -0400, Kevin Berrien wrote:

Check your system clock.  Its way off.
> I can confirm an issue posted Dec 3rd, freebsd-stable maillist,
> titled "4.9 install buglet".
>
> I experience this bug running the install (various configurations)
> 100% of the time.  After install, after system reboot, the boot
> loader comes up with F1: FreeBSD, and reboots continually forever.
> To test, I made 3 installs without issue using 4.8.  So first, I'd
> like to confirm the bug report, and ask the following.
I have also seen this problem on two of my systems when installing
4.9-RELEASE.
> In his "buglet" post, Ian noted the following work around.
>
> > Work around.  Force write in label screen (or rewrite MBR and
> > label post reboot)
Yes, I found this workaround also and it works for me.
> Looking at fdisk, and the label utility I see nothing option along
> these lines.  Could someone explain to me what/how to do this?
(From memory, YMMV) Reboot for the installation CD into sysinstall.
Select "Configure"  then "Fdisk".  In fdisk select
"W" this will cause
the MBR to be rewritten correctly (I always select the FreeBSD boot
manager, I don't know if that is necessary).
> Has anyone else seen this apparently prevalent issue?  Is a fix
> likely, or do these kind of things just slip by?  I did not expect
> this from a 'stable' release.
I'm not running stable so don't know if the problem is fixed there, or
even if a fix in known.

I'm using an ASUS P4B533-E motherboard with the original BIOS (Rev
1008 08/06/02).  There is an updated BIOS available and I hope to be
able to give it a try soon (it also fixes another minor problem I've
seen: booting from floppy which doesn't work currently).

Stuart
-- 
I've never been lost; I was once bewildered for three days, but never lost!
                                        --  Daniel Boone

On Tuesday 17 April 2018 2:10 pm, Kevin Berrien wrote:

Please don't cross post, it's confusing.
> I can confirm an issue posted Dec 3rd, freebsd-stable maillist, titled
> "4.9 install buglet".
>
> I experience this bug running the install (various configurations) 100%
> of the time.  After install, after system reboot, the boot loader comes
> up with F1: FreeBSD, and reboots continually forever.  To test, I made 3
> installs without issue using 4.8.  So first, I'd like to confirm the
bug
> report, and ask the following.
>
> In his "buglet" post, Ian noted the following work around.
>
> > Work around.  Force write in label screen (or rewrite MBR
> > and label post reboot)
>
> Looking at fdisk, and the label utility I see nothing option along these
> lines.  Could someone explain to me what/how to do this?
>
> Has anyone else seen this apparently prevalent issue?
Clearly this is not prevalent. If the majority of installs showed this problem 
there would be more than one previous post, or at least a reply. Or to put it 
another way. If it's prevalent, why ask if anyone else has seen it? Perhaps 
you meant something else.

There must be something specific to the hardware and/or the installation 
method that causes this to happen to us (only). This is why I called it a 
buglet rather than a bug.
> Is a fix likely, or do these kind of things just slip by?  
If a sysinstall developer reproduces it then it will probably get fixed. Other 
than that the normal open source methodology suggests that those who have the 
problem, fix the problem. ie Me or thee. I'm going to decline as the work 
around is truely trivial and this will be a b*st*rd to find.
> I did not expect this from a 'stable' release.
A release only gets the testing "we" give it. Due to time constraints
I didn't
test this hardware with this release. Mea culpa.

I suspect most pre-release testing follows defaults quite closely. This is why 
I listed the partition/boot information, as it's not typical.

Can you tell us what motherboard you have and what you did in the fdisk and 
boot manager screens? Common choices might give a clue.
>
> Unfortunately, I'm making my second attempt at evaluating FreeBSD (last
> time I used an active box - and got frustrated with bad ports, MySQL/BSD
> issues, and needed to get the box online, so I installed something that
> worked).
Never evaluate anything when you "need it to work". You're setting
your self
up to fail. Not only that but you do FreeBSD a disservice.
> I'm interested in BSD's lean-ness, and other aspects, as
> opposed to other "nix'es".  Needless to say, testing again
using 4.9
> this time hasn't been very impressive.
Well  you've managed to find a trivial work around for a very obscure bug.
I'd
say that was quite impressive.
 
Never give up, never surrender.

-- 
ian j hart

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20031016

On Tue, 17 Apr 2018, Kevin Berrien wrote:
> I can confirm an issue posted Dec 3rd, freebsd-stable maillist, titled
> "4.9 install buglet".
>
> I experience this bug running the install (various configurations) 100%
> of the time.  After install, after system reboot, the boot loader comes
> up with F1: FreeBSD, and reboots continually forever.  To test, I made 3
> installs without issue using 4.8.  So first, I'd like to confirm the
bug
> report, and ask the following.
Please qualify "reboots continutally forever."  It reboots after
printing
the F1: FreeBSD message, or after you press a key, or what?

This sounds like a BIOS issue. boot0 uses only BIOS calls to do its work.
Lots of problems like this are also caused by bad drive geometry.

What is the partition layout on the disk(s) in the system? Hardware
description?

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite@gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org

I've fixed the problem, but for the benefit of others...
> Please qualify "reboots continutally forever."  It reboots after
printing
> the F1: FreeBSD message, or after you press a key, or what?
Yes, hitting a key.  I would suppose if I let it time out it'd do the same.
> This sounds like a BIOS issue. boot0 uses only BIOS calls to do its work.
> Lots of problems like this are also caused by bad drive geometry.
4.8 installs correctly 100%, 4.9 fails 100%.
 
> What is the partition layout on the disk(s) in the system? Hardware
> description?
One of my old test boxes, on which I've install most everything in the past.
Single partition, Micron/Intel mb, PII 300, SIS graphics, 4 gig ide, 256 ram.

Thanks to Stuart Barkley detailed suggestion:
>(From memory, YMMV) Reboot for the installation CD into sysinstall.
>Select "Configure"  then "Fdisk".  In fdisk select
"W" this will cause
>the MBR to be rewritten correctly (I always select the FreeBSD boot
>manager, I don't know if that is necessary).
I was able to get my 4.9 to boot.

Ian,
> That's three of us now. Maybe this should go in the errata?
Obsolutely.  As I said in my original posting.  I'm re-evaluating BSD for
the
2nd time,  and I was inches away ending my evaluation with the concensus that 
BSD is not worth my time in 2004.

> On Tuesday 17 April 2018 2:10 pm, Kevin Berrien wrote:
> 
> Please don't cross post, it's confusing.
> 
> > I can confirm an issue posted Dec 3rd, freebsd-stable maillist, titled
> > "4.9 install buglet".
> >
> > I experience this bug running the install (various configurations)
100%
> > of the time.  After install, after system reboot, the boot loader
comes
> > up with F1: FreeBSD, and reboots continually forever.  To test, I made
3
> > installs without issue using 4.8.  So first, I'd like to confirm
the bug
> > report, and ask the following.
> >
> > In his "buglet" post, Ian noted the following work around.
> >
> > > Work around.  Force write in label screen (or rewrite MBR
> > > and label post reboot)
> >
> > Looking at fdisk, and the label utility I see nothing option along
these
> > lines.  Could someone explain to me what/how to do this?
> >
> > Has anyone else seen this apparently prevalent issue?
> 
> Clearly this is not prevalent. If the majority of installs showed this
problem
> there would be more than one previous post, or at least a reply. Or to put
it
> another way. If it's prevalent, why ask if anyone else has seen it?
Perhaps
> you meant something else.
> 
> There must be something specific to the hardware and/or the installation 
> method that causes this to happen to us (only). This is why I called it a 
> buglet rather than a bug.
What a coincidence I might say as yesterday I installed 4.9-R on QDI
P61440BX/BIS(Intel BX chipset) mobo and got exactly the same thing, except I had
chosen the second install a standard bootsector? which is what I normally
choose, machine passed through bios just fine after installation, then immediate
reboot after "updated ESCD successfully...", round and round in
circles, I thought I had a hardware problem, the machine was gift and is
destined to be a small samba server for one of the NGO's that I support.
This is incidentally the 4th machine I have put 4.9 on in as many weeks, and is
the first install I have ever had any problem with since 2.2.6. I followed the
advice to reinsert the boot cd and go back to fdisk and press w, it worked
perfectly when rebooted the next time.
-- 
Martin Smith

On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 09:10:14AM -0400, Kevin Berrien
wrote:
> I can confirm an issue posted Dec 3rd, freebsd-stable maillist, titled
> "4.9 install buglet".
> 
> I experience this bug running the install (various configurations) 100%
> of the time.  After install, after system reboot, the boot loader comes
> up with F1: FreeBSD, and reboots continually forever.  To test, I made 3
> installs without issue using 4.8.  So first, I'd like to confirm the
bug
> report, and ask the following.
> 
> In his "buglet" post, Ian noted the following work around.
> 
> > Work around.  Force write in label screen (or rewrite MBR
> > and label post reboot)
> 
I just experienced this same bug after installing freebsd 4.9 on monday
this week, though I don't remember seeing any message at all, it just
rebooted automatically without me doing anything at all.  The soulution
I found was to boot using the live cd, go into fix-it mode and run
disklabel -B /dev/ad0 to reinstall the mbr, and since then freebsd had
been running perfectly and is now serving mail to 40+ people.
> 
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-- 
I sense much NT in you.
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Bluescreen leads to downtime.
Downtime leads to suffering.
NT is the path to the darkside.
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