I upgraded to 6.5.0 from 6.4.1 through Tools>Update OS. Everything seemed to go fine except when I rebooted.

 

After hooking up a monitor and keyboard I found out it was getting hung right after bizroot...OK. Right after the "OK" the screen would flash and the "Starting OS in 1 second" would be displayed and the system would be locked up. I tried booting in safe mode and it did the same thing.

 

Next I tried booting to GUI and it went all the way to the screen that asks for user name and password. I never set a user name or password so I tried "user" and left the password field blank but it didn't like that and just asked for the user name again.

 

I did move the flash drive to another USB port (a 2.0 port) but it didn't help. This is the first issue I have had with Unraid  since I started using it a year and a half ago.

 

Before I really mess something up I thought I better ask for a little help!

There have been other reports of some people only being able to boot in gui mode.   I do not think the reason for this has ever been identified.

 

the default user name is ‘root’ with no password.

21 minutes ago, Strega said:

Next I tried booting to GUI and it went all the way to the screen that asks for user name and password. I never set a user name or password so I tried "user" and left the password field blank but it didn't like that and just asked for the user name again.

Only 'root' can login. Blank password if you haven't set one for root.

 

You can get back to your previous version by putting your flash in your PC and copying the files in /previous to the top folder. While there you might also let your PC do checkdisk on it.

 

If it boots after that then you can try again, if not then there is some other problem.

I'll try booting in GUI mode with the proper user name when I get home from work.

 

If that doesn't work I'll try running checkdisk on the flash drive and if that doesn't work I'll revert back.

 

Thank you itimpi and trurl!

24 minutes ago, Strega said:

I'll try booting in GUI mode with the proper user name when I get home from work.

 I have exactly the same issue. With 6.5.0, the server only boots in GUI mode.  As stated, user for GUI login is "root".  In my case there is also a password set.

 

I have tried running chkdsk, using a different USB port/flash drive, updating MB BIOS, etc.  Nothing worked.  Rolling back to 6.4.1 worked every time.  I now have the server set to boot to GUI mode by default as neither "normal" nor safe mode will work for me with 6.5.0.  It hangs at Loading /bzroot...ok every time.

 

It looks like this issue (no rhyme or reason to it) goes back at least as far as 6.2.x releases, but, it is rare.  Most have no problem.  This is also the first time I have experienced this with any unRAID release.  My next step is to try clearing CMOS as this has worked for some.  GUI mode at least works, alhough it is not my preferred boot method.

 

The upgrade went well for me on one server, but, not the other.

Edited March 14, 20188 yr by Hoopster

@Hoopster @Strega try this to get non-gui mode working:

 

Power off the server, pull out the usb flash drive and plug it in another computer.  Edit the syslinux/syslinux.cfg file on the flash drive.  Look for the following in the file:

 

...

label unRAID OS
  menu default
  kernel /bzimage
  append initrd=/bzroot

...

 

And add ' nomodeset ' between the append and initrd strings, like so:

 

...

label unRAID OS
  menu default
  kernel /bzimage
  append nomodeset initrd=/bzroot

...

 

Save. eject the flash and try it in the server again.  @Hoopster I think you fixed one of your servers like this before but just want to be sure.

 

2 minutes ago, eschultz said:

Save. eject the flash and try it in the server again.  @Hoopster I think you fixed one of your servers like this before but just want to be sure.

 

I didn't think to try this since the issue it resolved the first time was completely different.  On the other server, I was getting no video via the ASPeed IMPI console; the server booted fine, I just lost console video at some point during boot process. 

 

In this case, it won't even boot and hangs at loading /bzroot.  I will give it a try and report back.

2 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

In this case, it won't even boot and hangs at loading /bzroot

 

I had once the issue that the BIOS would switch from the internal video adapter to the add-on video adapter, and no monitor connected to this add-on video adapter. This resulted in the loading getting stuck at bzroot. I removed the add-on video adapter and all was fine again.

 

24 minutes ago, eschultz said:

Power off the server, pull out the usb flash drive and plug it in another computer.  Edit the syslinux/syslinux.cfg file on the flash drive. 

 

I edited syslinux.cfg setting unRAID OS back to menu default and adding "nomodeset" to the append line so that section looked like this:

 

label unRAID OS
  menu default
  kernel /bzimage
  append nomodeset initrd=/bzroot

 

No change in behavior, it still hangs at Loading /bzroot...ok

 

I rebooted again and selected GUI mode and, as expected, the server booted normally into the GUI.

 

This server has no IPMI/ASPeed BMC for video which is why I did not think to try the nomodeset previously.

 

12 minutes ago, bonienl said:

I had once the issue that the BIOS would switch from the internal video adapter to the add-on video adapter, and no monitor connected to this add-on video adapter. This resulted in the loading getting stuck at bzroot. I removed the add-on video adapter and all was fine again

 

I have only the iGPU and have set onboard as the default graphics adapter.  There is no video card in the server other than the integrated graphics.

Edited March 14, 20188 yr by Hoopster

@Hoopster Are you booting via EFI?  If so, try changing your BIOS to boot legacy (non-efi) to see if that makes a difference.

51 minutes ago, eschultz said:

@Hoopster Are you booting via EFI?  If so, try changing your BIOS to boot legacy (non-efi) to see if that makes a difference.

 I am booting legacy, not EFi.  Do you want me to try EFI?  If so, is there anything involved other than renaming the EFI- folder to EFI?

 

FYI - this server has always booted legacy.  I have never tried EFI on it although I know it has UEFI BIOS.

Edited March 14, 20188 yr by Hoopster

1 hour ago, Hoopster said:

If so, is there anything involved other than renaming the EFI- folder to EFI?

 

Besides the folder rename (EFI- to EFI) you may have to tell your BIOS to prefer booting the flash via EFI.  I guess it can't hurt to try seeing if EFI boot helps.

 

I'm having this exact same issue post update.  I also have an asrock rackboard, but with xeon and ECC memory.

The first thing I did was to see if it boots in GUI mode which it does.

 

I then modified the syslinx.cfg file with notepad++ and went into bios to make sure it's booting in legacy. Unfortunately no success for me either, it hangs in the exact same spot.

 

Rebooted in GUI mode and it's up and running.

 

For the record my motherboard is an ASRock C236 WSI.

58 minutes ago, Strega said:

For the record my motherboard is an ASRock C236 WSI.

Another ASRock C236 WSI here with BIOS 2.50.  When I updated to 6.5.0  yesterday the BIOS version was 2.30 which I updated after unRAID upgrade.  However, the problem exists with either BIOS. 

And mine is still on the shipping BIOS.

 

I'm running an E3 1245 V5 with 32GB of Kingston EEC memory. The only other hardware in my system is a Mellanox 10GB card.

This has got to be some kind of BIOS issue.  I'm also running ASRock C236 WSI Mini ITX Server Motherboard, Xeon E3-1245 V6, and 32GB Kingston ECC.

1 hour ago, gamephreak said:

This has got to be some kind of BIOS issue.  I'm also running ASRock C236 WSI Mini ITX Server Motherboard, Xeon E3-1245 V6, and 32GB Kingston ECC.

 

An issue that was only exposed by a who-knows-what change (Linux kernel, CVE, spectre/meldown microcode patch, driver, etc.) in the 6.5.0 unRAID release as all prior versions booted without issue.

 

Another obvious question is...what is different about bzroot-gui vs. the normal bzroot that allows the former to boot whereas the latter does not?

 

I still have not done it, but, I may try resetting the BIOS to factory defaults and then making only the necessary changes (boot from USB, set onboard graphics to default, etc.) in case it is a BIOS setting that is causing problems with this specific version of unRAID.

 

Xeon E3-1245 v5 and 32GB Crucial ECC RAM in my server.

Edited March 15, 20188 yr by Hoopster

[Solved]

The issue was the BIOS graphics settings I believe.  I did a few things at the same time though, so I can't be sure what actually solved the problem.

 

Here's what I did...

1. Flashed BIOS from 2.30 to 2.50
2. Changed BIOS Primary Graphics Adapter setting to Onboard (default after BIOS reset was PCIE)
3. Removed all boot priority options besides UEFI on unRaid flash drive
4. Set CSM Enabled
5. Boot Option Filter changed to UEFI and Legacy
6. Mounted unRaid flash drive on a different computer and renamed EFI- directory to EFI

I've rebooted the system multiple times now and everything seems to be working.

20 hours ago, gamephreak said:

[Solved]

The issue was the BIOS graphics settings I believe.  I did a few things at the same time though, so I can't be sure what actually solved the problem.

 

Here's what I did...

1. Flashed BIOS from 2.30 to 2.50
2. Changed BIOS Primary Graphics Adapter setting to Onboard (default after BIOS reset was PCIE)
3. Removed all boot priority options besides UEFI on unRaid flash drive
4. Set CSM Enabled
5. Boot Option Filter changed to UEFI and Legacy
6. Mounted unRaid flash drive on a different computer and renamed EFI- directory to EFI

I've rebooted the system multiple times now and everything seems to be working.

At the time you posted this, I was going through the BIOS reset and reconfiguration procedure as well.

 

Here is what I found:

 

1.  I doubt this latest BIOS is necessary to get it to boot properly with 6.5.0; however, it is recommended as 2.50 contains meltdown/spectre fixes

2.  I also changed primary graphics adapter to onboard (from the reset default of PCIE) as I only have the iGPU and I need the drivers loaded for Plex hardware transcoding. (AUTO) will not do it.  This (onboard) is the setting I have always had.

3.  Here is where I think a change makes a difference.  I had Boot Priority as #1 USB: {Flash Drive} and #2 UEFI: {Flash Drive} and let the BIOS default the others at it wished.  I changed it to #1: UEFI: {Flash Drive} and the rest disabled.

4.  CSM Enabled is default after UEFI reset (I do not know if this is required to boot properly as it is the default and I did not change it)

5.  Boot Option Filter is UEFI and Legacy after BIOS reset and I had it set to this before as well (I do not know if this is required to boot properly as it is the default and I did not change it)

6.  Renamed EFI- to EFI (I think this change is now mandatory with this board)

 

Prior to unRAID 6.5.0 I was booting with Boot Priority #1 as USB: {Flash Drive} and EFI- left unchanged on flash drive.  I think this was "legacy" boot mode for this board.

 

My first change was to set Boot Priority to #1 UEFI {Flash Drive} with USB: {Flash Drive} as #2 and all others disabled.  With these boot settings and leaving EFI- unchanged server would not boot and hung at Loading /bzroot..ok

 

The second change was to rename EFI- to EFI and disable all boot priority settings other than UEFI: {Flash Drive}

 

The server booted properly in normal mode and no GUI boot was required.

 

Conclusion:  With unRAID 6.5.0, the ASRock C236 WSI can no longer be booted in "legacy" mode (non-UEFI boot and EFi- folder on flash drive).  UEFI boot is now required and boot priority #1 must be UEFI: {Flash Drive} with all others disabled and the flash folder EFI- must be renamed to EFI.

 

Basically, I can confirm what Gamephreak discovered. I think the key to getting it to boot normally are his #3 and #6.

Edited March 16, 20188 yr by Hoopster

This is what I did-

 

I renamed the EFI- folder to EFI and set my BIOS back to the way it was with 6.4.1. Actually the only change I made was changing Boot Option Filter back to UEFI and Legacy. I left my boot order alone and didn't update the BIOS. My graphics is set to AUTO. Mine did the same as Hoopster, got stuck at /bizroot....OK.

 

i went back into BIOS and changed the boot order to #1 UEFI: Sandisk and set all the others to Disable. It booted up normally. I have rebooted it a couple of times and it boots up.

 

Gamephreak did discover the fix. Rename the EFI- folder to EFI and set the boot order to #1 UEFI (Flash Drive) and disable all other boot options.

43 minutes ago, Strega said:

Rename the EFI- folder to EFI

 

UEFI boot looks for the EFI directory in the root of the boot partition on a device.  Actually it looks for /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi which contains the initial bootstrap machine code.  If this path/file does not exist, then UEFI firmware cannot boot from the device.

 

Legacy boot simply reads sector 0 of the boot device which contains the initial bootstrap machine code.

 

The USB Creator tool sets up both methods of boot, that is, it both creates /EFI/boot/boot64.efi and writes sector 0 with valid bootstrap for syslinux.  If the "EFI Boot" checkbox is not checked, then it will rename /EFI to /EFI- (adds dash to the end).  This simply "disables" EFI boot.  That is, renaming /EFI to /EFI- and vice versa are simple ways to permit or not permit UEFI boot.

 

Typically in bios that supports both, the actual code for Legacy boot and UEFI boot are totally separate.  That is, UEFI boot just doesn't simply "jump" to some entry point in Legacy boot code.  This can result in slightly different initialization of the the motherboard depending on which code is getting executed.  This explains why for some motherboards which boot ok in either method, GPU pass-through only works correctly in one of them, usually UEFI.

 

The bios boot priority is supposed to pick the order of methods to try if both EFI and Legacy boot are selected in the boot order.  Probably there is a bug in this motherboard bios which always "prefers" legacy boot if it detects a valid bootstrap record in sector 0 of the device, regardless of the boot order.  Modern windows installations exclusively use UEFI boot these days, and MacOS pretty much always has, meaning probably there has not been much testing on this bios for Legacy boot.  Well that's my theory.

36 minutes ago, limetech said:

Probably there is a bug in this motherboard bios which always "prefers" legacy boot if it detects a valid bootstrap record in sector 0 of the device, regardless of the boot order

 

Makes sense. However, for all versions of unRAID through 6.4.1, this did not matter.  Now booting in legacy mode with this board is, apparently, not even possible.  I am perfectly fine with forcing a UEFI boot, but, any idea what changed with 6.5.0 to make this necessary?  This is certainly not worth digging into if the answer is not readily apparent. I am just curious, if it can be answered with a minimum of effort.

38 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

any idea what changed with 6.5.0 to make this necessary?

 

No clue, nothing changed in this area.

Quote

1. Mounted unRaid flash drive on a different computer and renamed EFI- directory to EFI

 

6.5.0 upgrade failure with ASRock mobo. Renaming the above worked for me.