• JeremyChadwick
• Commonly_reported_issues

Commonly reported FreeBSD issues

This is a list of the most commonly reported FreeBSD issues on the mailing lists. There is some overlap with the Well-Known PRs list and the PRs recommended for committer evaluation by the bugbusting team.

ATA/SATA

• Please see my ATA/SATA issues and troubleshooting methods page.

SCSI and SAS

• mpt(4) unable to check the status of a RAID-1 array

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2008-March/023763.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2008-March/023765.html

• mfi(4) problems on Dell PowerEdge PERC6/i controllers

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2007-December/038755.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/039568.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/039574.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/039660.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/039675.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/039791.html

• ciss(4) breaks with filesystems larger than 2TB

  • Reference: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ciss/ciss.c

  • Fix: Applied to RELENG_6 and RELENG_7 on May 16th, 2008; see above commit.

ZFS

• After booting into single-user and doing ZFS-related commands, then going back into multi-user, ZFS cannot find any pools to mount (zfs list returns no datasets available)

  • Workaround (confirmed): While in single-user, run /etc/rc.d/hostid start then /etc/rc.d/zfs start.

  • Workaround: Once back in multi-user, use zfs import -a to re-import all known ZFS pools. You should only have to do this once.

• Heavy I/O between ZFS pool and UFS filesystem results in deadlocked system

  • Reference: http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSKnownProblems

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/040047.html

• After a failure (checksum or drive failure) + reboot occurs, ZFS resilvers without cause

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2008-January/004241.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-fs/2008-March/004561.html

GEOM

• Inability to boot off of gvinum(8) volumes

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-geom/2007-August/002513.html

• After making a gstripe(8), using newfs -U on the new stripe causes bad things to happen.

Kernel

• Intel SpeedStep (EIST) incompatibilities with some motherboards

  • Symptom: kernel says things like calcru: negative runtime of -XXXXX usec for pid XX

  • Symptom: kernel says things like calcru: runtime went backwards from XXXXX usec to XXXXX usec for pid XX

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2006-October/133253.html

  • Workaround: Disable the EIST feature in the BIOS. You can still achieve ACPI-based processor frequency throttling by using powerd(8).

• RELENG_7 jerky mouse and skipping sound

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-January/039599.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-February/040793.html

• Scrambled or garbled kernel output, such as:

  • SdMaP0::  AP1 6C0P.U0 0#0M1B /Lsa utnrcahnesdf!e
    da0: <SSMEPA:G AATPE  CSPTU3 3#617 5L3auLnWc hHePdS!3> 

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2007-October/078145.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2007-November/079130.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2007-December/038727.html

  • Workaround (confirmed): Use options PRINTF_BUFR_SIZE=256 in your kernel configuration

• Panic occurs when a mounted device (USB, SATA, local image file, etc.) is removed
  • Workaround: Be sure to umount all filesystems before removing the physical device.
  • Fix: kris@ tells me this problem has been fixed in HEAD (on or prior to 2008/02/21).

• Panic occurs when vm.kmem_size or vm.kmem_size_max set to values larger than 1536M

  • Limit is caused by a 2GB limit for kmem.
  • Affects i386 and amd64, regardless of how much physical memory is installed.

  • System will panic with kmem_suballoc(): bad status return of 3.

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-May/042764.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2008-May/024708.html

• System does not automatically reboot after a kernel panic

  • Reboots fine using shutdown -r or reboot(8).

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-May/042250.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-June/043011.html

ACPI

• NULL (\0) characters in ACPI namespace results in kernel panic (affects some MSI motherboards)

  • Reference: http://bsd.haofood.net/2005/11/21/work-around-for-busted-rs-acpi-long/

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-April/041789.html

• Some FreeBSD devices do not work, functionality is limited, or kernel panics early during boot stage; system works with ACPI disabled.

  • Check dmesg(8) to see if the kernel spits out any ACPI errors on boot.

  • Workaround: Check motherboard vendor's website for an updated BIOS, which may/may not fix applicable ACPI tables.

Firewall (pf, ipfilter, ipfw)

• pf(4) "modulate state" appears to function oddly/incorrectly on FreeBSD

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-pf/2008-March/004223.html

  • Workaround (confirmed): Use "keep state" instead.

Network devices

• em(4) watchdog timeouts on Intel 82573 NICs

  • Reference: http://e1000.sourceforge.net/doku.php?id=known_issues#v_l_e_tx_unit_hang_messages

  • Fix: DOS-based EEPROM patcher from Intel

  • Fix: Boot Linux, install ethtool(8), and follow this procedure

  • Troubleshooting: when using em(4) driver 6.7.3 or later, you can dump the contents of the EEPROM by doing sysctl dev.em.X.debug=2 (0=em0, 1=em1, etc.). You'll see something like this from the kernel:

    • Interface EEPROM Dump:
      Offset
      0x0000  3000 8f48 d903 0d20 f746 0057 ffff ffff
      0x0010  ffff ffff 026b 109a 15d9 109a 8086 80df
      0x0020  0000 2000 7e54 0000 1000 00da 0004 2700
      0x0030  6cc9 3150 0732 040b 2984 0000 c000 0706 

    Since the above code prints things in little-endian-stored words, you need to look at the value at offset 0x1f (and not 0x1e like Linux ethtool!), which in the above example is value 0xdf. Bit 0 should be set (1), which disables the power-saving feature that causes the problem. In the above example, the bit is set, which means that the above NIC is not succeptable to the bug.

• em(4) watchdog timeouts on other NICs

  • Open PR: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=122928

USB

• Removal of a mounted USB device without umount'ing first results in a kernel panic
  • See above, re: "Kernel - Panic occurs when a mounted device (USB, SATA, local image file, etc.) is removed"

• System freezes (briefly) when switching vcons (e.g. Alt-F2) or pressing CapsLock/NumLock/ScrollLock

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2006-March/015724.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2008-May/024647.html

  • Workaround: Remove kbdmux from the kernel.

  • Workaround: Remove atkbd from the kernel.

  • Workaround: Plug in a PS/2 keyboard (even if not used).
• Keyboard LEDs do not work
• F-Lock key on Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard does not function
• Modifier keys (Control/Alt/Shift) act as if they are stuck

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-March/041426.html

BTX, boot2, and loader

• Cannot boot FreeBSD from a USB device (flash, disk, etc.)

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-March/041112.html

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-March/041287.html

• Loading of gzip'd mfsroot from pxeboot(8) causes loader reload/reset

  • Open PR: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/120127

• BTX crashes on start (screen continually scrolls registers or dumps registers then reboots)
  • Some systems behave badly when executing BIOS interrupts while in virtual 86 mode. Use real mode instead.

  • Reference: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/boot/i386/btx/btx/Makefile - see revision 1.19.10.1

  • Workaround: Download a snapshot ISO from ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/200804

  • Fix: John Baldwin committed fixes to RELENG_[467] on March 18th, 2008.

• /boot/loader version 1.02 causes lock-up (Ctrl-Alt-Del and NumLock/CapsLock still work)

  • v86 structure not initialised prior to being called

  • Reference: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-May/042650.html

  • Fix: John Baldwin provided a patch: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-May/042678.html