FGT50B boot loop: flash dead

[FlavioB]

Hello everybody. I' ve got a case in which when rebooting a 50B after having pushed a firmware upgrade, the device got stuck in a boot loop. I connected with the console cable and discovered that the boot device was unaccessible. I thus formatted the device, got the firmware on the device via TFTP and ready it was again! The same thing happened to about 4-5 different 50B devices, which all passed the HQIP tests. It goes like this: format device, get firmware on it. Then I left the devices running, played a bit with the config, rebooted a couple of times: NO PROBLEMS AT ALL! Then, when removing AC Power to move the device to the definitive install location, something will for shure have happened: when plugging the device again on, it gets into this boot loop and after connecting with console cable I could see that it couldn' t find the boot device... AGAIN! Is this a known issue? Anybody else having had these experiences? Thanks for any reply. Regards, F.

[ede_pfau]

No explanation, no remedy, but some time ago when I ' dissected' a dead 50B I noticed that the flash disk is removable. It' s a CF card in an onboard clip socket. Two things I would check: - is the card seated correctly? - will the FG run better with a new 64 GB flash card? Of course, all internal access invalidates the warranty. But hey, it' s just a 50B...

[rwpatterson]

Somewhere, someone here had mentioned that the unit should be shut down from the GUI (or console) prior to removing power. I have never had to do this, but I don' t have 50Bs (or the 60Cs, which is what the post was based on I believe).

[hohosecure]

There is an article on the KB that says clearly for the smaller models that " In order to avoid potential hardware problems it is important to always shut down the Fortinet operating system properly before turning off the power switch. If a graceful shutdown is not performed it may result in the corruption of the flash file system. " http://kb.fortinet.com/kb/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=FD33353

[Matthijs]

Gues you are running 4.0 MR1 PatchX releases? This is a known issue. Di you see one of the following error messages? __get_backdoor_timeout: Couldn' t get shm __set_backdoor_timeout: Couldn' t get shm __admindb_get_copy: Couldn' t get admindb Upgrade to 4.0 MR2 and your problems are gone ;-) See this post: http://support.fortinet.com/forum/tm.asp?m=73819&p=1&tmode=1&smode=1

[FlavioB]

Hy Matthijs, I am running MR3 Patch3 on those devices. Regards, F. BTW: thanks to hohosecure, I guess *that* is the main reason for those annoying failures...

[simonorch]

the 50b is more or less the only model we see HW issues or DOA with. Hopefully the 40C is better and we will see the 50B disappear.