I have had Truenas Core running on this hardware for 5 or so years now, and with the recent stable release of Electric Eel I thought I would finally make the switch. Unfortunately, I’ve run into nothing but issues getting it to boot. The specific error is hard to pin down as there’s no error message given, the system just locks up roughly at the same point each time (cursor stops blinking and keyboard is unresponsive). Here is where it locks up while trying to boot 24.10.0:
I’ve tried different SCALE versions, different install USBs, different USB imaging tools, different boot SSD install targets, pulling ram sticks, moving ram to different slots and while the installation itself always completes with no issues, I have yet to get fully booted even once.
Thankfully I didn’t upgrade through the GUI, so I was able to re-boot back into Core with no issues. Which means I’m not dead in the water, but points away from a hardware issue (to me).
My instincts point me to think maybe some BIOS configuration issue, but frankly a lot of that is over my head. Other than that, I can only think there’s some fundamental compatibility issue with my hardware, which wouldn’t surprise me given the age, but these are just my hunches.
I don’t know your system, but based only on the screenshots, here are the changes I would make:
Boot
Boot option filter: EUFI only (you may need to reinstall TrueNAS)
Boot Advanced
Addon ROM Display Mode: not sure what the alternatives are, but force anything feels bad
Wait for F1: Your choice as to whether system partially boots or hangs if there is an error
Power button function: Not sure about alternatives but probably not Instant Off.
PCI Advanced
Above 4G encoding: you can try enabling this - it might fix the problem.
Onboard LAN option: Disable unless you plan to boot over the network.
Graphic Adapter Priority: If you don’t have a GPU use a different value. If you have CPU graphics and GPU, then set this to whatever you plug your monitor into.
Serial advanced
You are going to use ancient serial ports in this day and age? Probably best disabled.
I have no idea whether or not these suggestions will help. Give them a try and come back to let us know the results.
Burned a few hours messing around further, unfortunately no progress was made. A few further notes:
Enabling above 4g encoding caused a black screen, and maybe a post failure? not 100% sure since I couldn’t see anything
UEFI Only didn’t really work, the truenas boot drive didn’t show up at all after doing that, and even trying to boot to the UEFI version of the installer usb boot device (it shows up twice, one of which has UEFI preceding it) fails to a grub rescue prompt (unknown file system).
tried changing the UEFI mode in Rufus when making the installer USB, tried both options during the installer when asked if it should support EFI. also tried different SATA ports, different SATA cable… at this point I’m feeling out of options. Might be a sign from above that it’s time to upgrade
Just made what will likely be my last attempt at solving this, attempted to install Debian bookworm hoping it would fail similarly and I could chase down that rabbit hole.
But alas it installed and ran perfectly straight away. Bittersweet.
Not so fast! I ended up picking up some cheap parts to do some testing, a z97 board + i7 4790k. Tried installing and booting again… similar results, got stuck on boot (although curiously the cursor kept blinking this time).
On a hunch, I pulled out the GPU, and of course it booted up perfectly. The GPU worked perfectly with Truenas CORE and Debian Bookworm, so I’m really struggling to understand what about this combination is so problematic for SCALE, but at least I am bootable for now.
I will note that booting without the gpu did still have some of these weird box artifacts in the middle of words (this was also present when booting with GPU before hanging).
Eureka! I was able to unbury a deleted reddit comment about a similar issue, which instantly solved my issue. Specifically had to change the Initial Display Output in BIOS from PCIe 1 Slot, to IGFX (and plugging the display cable back into the motherboard output).
Not motivated enough to re-try this fix with the old motherboard/cpu in to confirm this would solve the issue for that hardware as well, but I think it’s safe to assume.
FYI this mode is a BIOS feature that controls the display of ROM messages from the BIOS of add-on devices like HBA’s, graphics cards, SATA controllers, etc. during the boot sequence. It normally will show the key sequence to enter the add-on cards BIOS and may also show what is initialized on the card and any other boot messages considered important by the manufacture of the card.
Force mode for the AddOn ROM just means if some type of quiet boot, silent boot, or quick boot is enabled on the motherboard, the add-on device BIOS messages will be forced to display anyway during boot.
This mode can be helpful if and when you may need to enter the add-on cards BIOS for a configuration change. Lots of Supermicro boards have this feature and it won’t affect the boot.
