How to troubleshoot when FreeBSD 14-RELEASE gets stuck on installation boot?

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pvuchetich

The question is where do I look to learn how to run a diagnostic/debug/more detailed boot process with FreeBSD to see exactly what is hanging? I haven't had to troubleshoot this type of boot issue before. I hope to be able to find a workaround (e.g. disable the thing that hangs), or at least gather enough information for a useful bug report.

When installing from FreeBSD14-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1 on a Lenovo P15v Gen3 (AMD), the system freezes after booting to the line "battery0: <ACPI Control Method Battery> on acpi0". (screenshot attached showing a portion of the screen). The system hangs indefinitely (at least tens of minutes before I turn it off).

I've disabled the Lenovo/Microsoft secure boot. For testing, I was able to install recent Ubuntu and Debian versions without a problem.
For testing other FreeBSD-based options, nomadbsd-140R-20231121.amd64.zfs.img and GhostBSD-23.10.1.iso both get stuck in the boot process as well, so I think there is an issue between FreeBSD and this specific PC model.
 

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pvuchetich said:
the system freezes after booting to the line "battery0: <ACPI Control Method Battery> on acpi0".
Click to expand...
That's the last thing that was successful. So it's something that happens after this that apparently makes it stall. It's probably USB or disk controllers (AHCI for example) that comes next.

pvuchetich said:
I've disabled the Lenovo/Microsoft secure boot.
Click to expand...
If secure boot was an issue it wouldn't be able to load and start the kernel. It would fail before the boot even started.

It may have something to do with some UEFI/BIOS settings. Can you change how the controller is detected (IDE, AHCI, RAID, etc) for example?
 
Thanks - I will be able to test it again next week. I didn't see it previously, but it looks like (per the manual online) there is a setting option to change the storage from Intel RST to AHCI mode in Lenovo's guide for installing Ubuntu 20.04. Intel RST is probably defaulted, and is likely the issue. This PC has 2 M.2 NVME slots, and allows software RAID for Windows.

Yes for the secure boot, too - when I previously tried to install any non-Win11 OS, I had to disable secure boot for it to even recognize the OS (it does allow me to upload keys to allow other OS to pass the secure boot test, but initially it is easier to turn it off and encrypt the drive).
 
It appears that the P15v Gen3 AMD does not allow editing of the storage controller mode. The reference I was looking at was for a previous generation of the P15v, and might only apply to the Intel-based model.
For the specific reference (if anyone else runs into this), I've attached the image from the PDF showing the Lenovo instructions to change the controller to AHCI mode (for installing Ubuntu), as well as a photograph of my BIOS setting, showing the config menu, which does not include a "Storage" option. The revision date of that PDF was 2021-01-22, which is ~2 years prior to the Gen3 model release date.


Since I was able to install Debian previously, I'll see if that can provide any insights on the storage controller (possibly Intel RST), which may be a component not yet supported by FreeBSD.
 

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