6.4 RC1 locks up solid on first reboot

[John Baldwin]

On Thursday 23 October 2008 02:24:49 am Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 06:27:45AM +0200, Milan Obuch wrote:
> > On Thursday 23 October 2008 01:32:27 Jo Rhett wrote:
> > > I haven't had time to investigate, but after installing 6.4RC1 on a
> > > machine I've been using with 6.3 for a few months, it installs
> > > painlessly but on the first and subsequent reboots you see
> > >
> > > BTX Loader 1.00 blah blah blah
> > > ...
> > > Loading /boot/defaults/loader.con
> > > \
> > >
> > > At this point you have a hard refreeze -- no keyboard control, however
> > > I can reboot it from the Phantom card.
> > >
> > > System: Rackable C2004, dual Intel 2.66 processors, 4gb RAM, disk
> > > drive on built in SCSI port
> > >
> > > Absolutely nothing special, boots and runs 6.2 and 6.3 without a flaw.
> > >
> > > I'll have more time to investigate on Friday.  Anything specific that
> > > would be more or less useful to debug in particular?
> > 
> > I did not investigate on this issue too much, but there is an workaround - 
> > copy older /boot/loader over newer one. In my case, I am rebuilding whole
> > world often, and now /boot/loader seems to not build correctly for me. 
Older 
> > one is ~ 250 kB, rebuilt will be ~ 185 kB, and freezes.
> > 
> > In your case, you would write old /boot/loader from 6.3 over new installed 
> > with 6.4RC1 and it will boot normally again.
> > 
> > I know it is only workaround, but it's quick and easy, and I have not too 
much 
> > time to investigate any further (not to mention I have no idea what to 
look 
> > for and where).
> 
> Has anyone filed a PR on this problem, or contacted John Baldwin?

Yes, but debugging these hangs is very non-trivial.  It likely involves 
disassembling the BIOS and trying to see where it can get stuck in a loop.

-- 
John Baldwin