Technical Tip: FortiGate/FortiAP Fabric Upgrade fails with the error 'The device could not be rebooted' and 'reboot-failed'

[AishAbdu]

Description	This article describes how to resolve an issue where attempting to upgrade FortiGates/FortiAP using a Security Fabric Upgrade results in failure, with an error message being produced in the web GUI stating 'the device could not be rebooted'. When checking the Upgrade Status of the Fabric Upgrade from System -> Fabric Management, an 'Upgrade Failed' message may be present. Hovering over that error message will show the reason, with a frequent reason being 'the device could not be rebooted'. Additionally, checking the config system federated-upgrade section of the configuration in the CLI will show the recorded reason for a fabric upgrade failure: config system federated-upgrade     set status failed     set failure-reason reboot-failed
Scope	FortiGate v7.0.0 and above.
Solution	Additional symptoms of fabric upgrade failure: After a fabric upgrade fails, the System Event logs generated by the Root FortiGate (Log & Report -> Events -> System Events in FortiOS v7.0, Log & Report -> System Events -> General System Events in FortiOS v7.2 and later) will include Warning-severity entries for Log ID 22092 - LOG_ID_FEDERATED_UPGRADE_FAILED. The following is an example of this log entry: eventtime=1731014595854367233 tz="+0000" logid="0100022092" type="event" subtype="system" level="warning" vd="root" logdesc="A federated upgrade failed" msg="Federated upgrade from system federated-upgrade failed after reaching confirmed" reason="reboot failed" The System Event logs may also include a Critical-severity entry for Log ID 32226 - LOG_ID_LOAD_IMG_FAIL, which indicates that firmware images were not uploaded successfully during the upgrade attempt: eventtime=1731014595854344013 tz="+0000" logid="0100032226" type="event" subtype="system" level="critical" vd="root" logdesc="Image failed to load" ui="sfupgraded" action="loaded-image" status="failure" msg="User loaded an image from sfupgraded. System upgrade failed due to file operation failure." Recommendation: As per Issue #1080638, there is a known-issue where attempting to perform a Fabric Upgrade on FortiGates running FortiOS v7.0 will result in repeated failures with a reason of 'reboot-failed'. This issue was separately addressed in FortiOS v7.2.5, v7.4.0, and all later versions as of Issue #868701, but for FortiOS v7.0, consider performing individual/standalone upgrades on each FortiGate fabric member until the fabric as a whole is running v7.2 or later. However, in other cases where Fabric Upgrades fail for FortiGate and FortiAP, try the following steps: To reboot the device in the GUI, go to the dashboard and, under the System Information widget, select Reboot as shown in the screenshot below:   To reboot the device from the CLI, enter the following command: execute reboot After the reboot has been completed, navigate to System -> Fabric Management and select Cancel Fabric Upgrade. Proceed with another attempt at upgrading the device. After the above steps, the upgrade should be successful. Related document: Upgrading all device firmware by following the upgrade path (federated update)