FreeBSD hangs on boot after kernel upgrade to 9.0-R

[Ian Smith]

On Sun, 22 Jan 2012, mato wrote:
 > On Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:57:05 +0200, Alexander Motin wrote
 > > Hi.
 > > 
 > > On 01/21/12 21:34, mato wrote:
 > > > I've used freebsd-update to upgrade from 8.2-R to 9.0-R and all looked nice
 > > > until the first reboot.  Now my FreeBSD always hangs midway through the boot
 > > > process and the last message output is:
 > > > "uhub3:<Intel EHCI root HUB..."
 > > > I've tried safe boot option but that does not help at all.
 > > > When I disable USB support in BIOS the last message before hang is:
 > > > "ata1: reset tp1 mask=03 ostat0=00 ostat1=00
 > > > (aprobe0:ata0:0:1:0): SIGNATURE: eb14"
 > > >
 > > > Any idea what might be wrong and how to fix it please ?
 > > 
 > > The last line is the ATAPI device detection. What ATA controller do 
 > > you have there? On one Core2Duo-class Supermicro system alike hang 
 > > was caused by ITE PATA controller. In that case it was workarounded 
 > > by adding hint.ata.0.mode="PIO4" to /oot/loader.conf. You may try 
 > > just set it from loader prompt with `set` command.
 > > 
 > 
 > I don't know exact controller but this is Pentium M based laptop.

Which one?

 > HDD is primary master while DVD drive is primary slave. :-/
 > And it's been working like this since FreeBSD 5.3.
 > 
 > Anyway, I've tried your advice but unfortunately it did not help.
 > Here is longer log (retyped from screen):
 > 
 > ata0: reset tp1 mask=03 ostat0=50 ostat1=00
 > ata0: stat0=0x50 err=0x01 lsb=0x00 msb=0x00
 > ata0: stat1=0x00 err=0x01 lsb=0x14 msb=0xeb
 > ata0: reset tp2 stat0=50 stat1=00 devices=0x20001
 > (aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): SIGNATURE: 0000
 > ata1: reset tp1 mask=03 ostat0=00 ostat1=00
 > (aprobe0:ata0:0:1:0): SIGNATURE: eb14"
 > 
 > Then it hangs.  And please note it looks differently when USB is not turned
 > off in BIOS.  Though I have no idea if / how that matters.
 > 
 > So what now please ?  Any other things to try ?

It's possible this is not an ATA problem; these being the last messages 
you see may just be the last (maybe) successful thing happening; those 
messages look about normal to me.  I had similar symptoms (ie the last 
messages before the problem occurring being ATA ones) with a long term 
error (60 second stall) when resuming my Thinkpad T23, which turned out 
to be a USB problem, in my case with UHCI.  The solution to that was to 
build a kernel thus:

include GENERIC
ident NO_UHCI
# load on boot, unload/reload around suspend/resume
nodevice        uhci            # UHCI PCI->USB interface
# not used
nodevice        ohci            # OHCI PCI->USB interface
# not used, USB 1 only
nodevice        ehci            # EHCI PCI->USB interface (USB 2.0)

That's on 8.2-RELEASE, but I haven't heard of this issue being resolved 
on 9 yet.  Of course, if you can't boot you can't build a new kernel on 
it, but I thought I'd mention USB as a possible 'hidden' issue here.

cheers, Ian