Alpha snapshot to Release

S

Samara1991

Good day. I'm somewhat knew to FreeBSD. I installed FreeBSD 15.0 alpha 4 months ago, in which everything was pkg-configured. I use it as a desktop system. Some periodic updates have been causing a mismatch between kernel and ABI. Modules (including kmod, fuse, etc.) would refuse to load. I had to solve it by installing the previous working kernel, the one located in \var\cache\pkg. It worked fine. I supposed it was because ports modules were quarterly and kernel was latest.
I upgraded to 15.0-Stable in December 2025, following the special instructions in the Readme. However the kernel-ABI mismatch happened again in January 2026, and modules refused to load.

I tried applying this, but it is not solved: https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-stable/2025-November/003621.html

I tried changing repos (/etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf and /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf) to the Release ones, but I was still getting the ABI mismatch error, so I had to install the last working stable kernel (FreeBSD-kernel-generic-15.snap20251201164446.pkg) to make it work. Now I have a messed up system.

freebsd-version -kru
15.0-STABLE
15.0-STABLE
15.0-RELEASE-p3

uname -a
FreeBSD home 15.0-STABLE FreeBSD 15.0-STABLE stable/15-n281400-0db8e36b2baa GENERIC amd64

any recommendations? is there any solution to this? It seems I have three options. 1) clean-install the 15.0-Release from scratch. 2) manually switch from stable to release (including cloning source). 3) stay with 15.0-Stable and periodically build kmods and ports that give problems. 4) wait with this kernel until 15.1...
 
Samara1991 said:
I supposed it was because ports modules were quarterly and kernel was latest.
Click to expand...
Pkgbase has no quarterly release cycle.

Samara1991 said:
I tried changing repos (/etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf and /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf) to the Release ones
Click to expand...
Don't edit /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf.

Samara1991 said:
freebsd-version -kru
15.0-STABLE
15.0-STABLE
15.0-RELEASE-p3
Click to expand...
So, you have a 15-STABLE kernel and a 15.0-RELEASE userland. It could be worse, this isn't too bad.

What does pkg repos output?
 
this is pkg repos
Code: 
FreeBSD-ports: {  
    url             : "pkg+[URL]https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/quarterly[/URL]",
    enabled         : yes,
    priority        : 0,
    mirror_type     : "SRV",
    signature_type  : "FINGERPRINTS",
    fingerprints    : "/usr/share/keys/pkg"
  }
FreeBSD-ports-kmods: { 
    url             : "pkg+[URL]https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_quarterly_0[/URL]",
    enabled         : yes,
    priority        : 0,
    mirror_type     : "SRV",
    signature_type  : "FINGERPRINTS",
    fingerprints    : "/usr/share/keys/pkg"
  }
FreeBSD-base: { 
    url             : "pkg+[URL]https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/base_latest[/URL]",
    enabled         : yes,
    priority        : 0,
    mirror_type     : "SRV",
    signature_type  : "FINGERPRINTS",
    fingerprints    : "/usr/share/keys/pkg"
  }
 
For 15.0-RELEASE FreeBSD-base should be this:
Code: 
FreeBSD-base: {
  url: "pkg+https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/base_release_${VERSION_MINOR}",
  mirror_type: "srv",
  signature_type: "fingerprints",
  fingerprints: "/usr/share/keys/pkgbase-${VERSION_MAJOR}",
  enabled: no
}

Fix this in /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf, then add (if it's not there) FreeBSD-base: { enabled: yes } to /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf.

After that you probably need to force install the kernel (you're basically downgrading):
pkg install -f FreeBSD-kernel-generic
 
Probably because the ALPHA 15-STABLE is actually older than 15.0-RELEASE. In any case, looks like you now have the correct kernel version.
 
afrer the kernel upgrade I rebooted, and desktop was gone, lots of modules show mismatch
KLD iic.ko: depends on kernel - not available or version mismatch

this is the case for i915kms, for cuse, for mac_ntpd, for drm... I can use it through tty
 
That's perhaps due to it previously being on 'latest'. Ehm, how to fix this.. Try pkg -r FreeBSD-ports upgrade -f
 
It did not work, I'm getting the same errors. I think this is the same problem i have been having for months, if i want it ro work I have ro use an older kernel... im on STABLE, and I have to use late 2025 kernel.
Might this be caused by the kernel or modules not actually updating? Being in a different dataset or something?
 
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