# How to read errors shown at booting startup process?



## hockey97 (Mar 22, 2014)

Hi, I would like to know when FreeBSD is booting. It shows text from displaying that things are ok to actual errors. I got alot of errors but the screen keeps progressing downward. So, it's displayed and quickly goes off the screen. So, I don't have enough time to actually read the errors. Does anyone know where I can read those errors? Is there a way where I can pause the booting process? So I can read the errors on the screen?  :OO


----------



## jalla (Mar 22, 2014)

If you press Scroll Lock you can move around the console buffer.


----------



## hockey97 (Mar 22, 2014)

jalla said:
			
		

> If you press Scroll Lock you can move around the console buffer.


Is there any way I can view them in the logs?  I have issues where when I upgraded from FreeBSD 8.1 to 8.4 when FreeBSD was patching up files. It ended up adding stuff like "<<<<<<" and "/////" in certain areas of files which is generating errors on those lines in the files. So, I just need to clean the files up.


----------



## jalla (Mar 22, 2014)

No, this won't be logged anywhere. If it's a small number of files that are corrupt you can switch between consoles (ALT-Fx), scroll through errors in the first window, and fix the files one by one in the second.


----------



## wblock@ (Mar 22, 2014)

Hey, @jalla, nice to see you again!

rc script errors might show in `dmesg -a`.  Unfortunately, I can't tell offhand, because none of my scripts are generating those errors.


----------



## Sebulon (Mar 24, 2014)

Perhaps if you configure a serial console and reboot with it connected (through cu or putty from another machine), you might be able to save them away?

/Sebulon


----------



## jalla (Mar 24, 2014)

I think @wblock is right, all console output should be visible with dmesg -a.

The system buffer is limited so eventually older messages will fall off the top. Just redirect the output to a file If you want to keep it for the long term.


----------



## phoenix (Mar 24, 2014)

If you want to know all the gory details of what the RC system is doing, what each individual RC script is doing, and exactly what's causing the errors, you can enable verbose logging in /etc/rc.conf.  Just be warned, you will get a tonne of output from it.  

From rc.conf(5):

```
rc_debug    (bool) If set to ``YES'', enable output of debug messages
                 from rc scripts.  This variable can be helpful in diagnosing
                 mistakes when editing or integrating new scripts.  Beware
                 that this produces copious output to the terminal and
                 syslog(3).
```


----------

