freebsd stable - Apr 2014 - 9.2 Boot Problem

I put this out on Questions, but got no responses. Hopefully someone here has
some ideas.

FreeBSD 9.2.  All of my systems are hanging during boot right after the screen
that has the picture.  Its as if someone hit a space on the keyboard.  However,
these systems have no keyboard.  If I plug one in, or use the serial console,
and enter a return, the boot continues properly.

The boot menu is displayed along with Beastie.  However, the line that says
Autoboot in n seconds? never appears.  It just stops there.  These are all new
installs from CD systems.  I just used freebsd-update to take a toy server from
9.1 to 9.2 and it doesn't exhibit this behavior.  It boots properly.  I have
updated one of the production servers with the latest 9.2 changes and it still
has the issue.  I first thought that some config file did not get updated
properly on the CD.  I have dug around through the 4th files and don't see
anything obvious that would cause this.  I have now verified that all the 4th
files in boot are identical (except for the version number.  They are slightly
different).  I don't believe this is a BIOS setting issue as FreeBSD 7.2
didn't exhibit this behavior.  All 4 systems are on totally different
motherboards.

I tried setting loader_logo="none" in /boot/config.rc and that
eliminated the menu and Beastie.  I think the system completed booting, but the
serial console was then dead.  It did not respond or output anything.  I had to
remove that and reboot to get the console back again.

I need to get this fixed as these are production servers that are essentially
unmanned so its difficult to get them back up again.

On 4 April 2014, at 21:08, Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:
> I put this out on Questions, but got no responses. Hopefully someone here
has some ideas.
> 
> FreeBSD 9.2.  All of my systems are hanging during boot right after the
screen that has the picture.  Its as if someone hit a space on the keyboard. 
However, these systems have no keyboard.  If I plug one in, or use the serial
console, and enter a return, the boot continues properly.
> 
> The boot menu is displayed along with Beastie.  However, the line that says
Autoboot in n seconds? never appears.  It just stops there.  These are all new
installs from CD systems.  I just used freebsd-update to take a toy server from
9.1 to 9.2 and it doesn't exhibit this behavior.  It boots properly.  I have
updated one of the production servers with the latest 9.2 changes and it still
has the issue.  I first thought that some config file did not get updated
properly on the CD.  I have dug around through the 4th files and don't see
anything obvious that would cause this.  I have now verified that all the 4th
files in boot are identical (except for the version number.  They are slightly
different).  I don't believe this is a BIOS setting issue as FreeBSD 7.2
didn't exhibit this behavior.  All 4 systems are on totally different
motherboards.
> 
> I tried setting loader_logo="none" in /boot/config.rc and that
eliminated the menu and Beastie.  I think the system completed booting, but the
serial console was then dead.  It did not respond or output anything.  I had to
remove that and reboot to get the console back again.
> 
> I need to get this fixed as these are production servers that are
essentially unmanned so its difficult to get them back up again.

No response here either.  Surely someone must know the loader.  I have been
digging through the code, and can't find any differences between the systems
that work and those that don't.  Is there any way to debug this?  Is there a
way to find out where the loader is sitting waiting on input from the terminal. 
That might give a clue as to why it didn't autoboot.