filesystems don't properly dismount

[Velcro Leaf]

 Benjamin Kaduk wrote:

> At this point, I think the most useful information would be the kernel messages 
> from shutdown time, printed on the console.  Do you have a serial console (makes 
> this easy)? Otherwise, you may have to take a picture or video of the machine as 
> it shuts down.

The video was a great idea.  I'm glad I didn't put forth the effort to dust off an old terminal, because now the two servers are quietly and happily rebooting.  This is good news, but also annoying.

It's possible that every time I saw the system reboot sloppily, it was still in the process of being updated (that is, only part of the way through the freebsd-update procedure).

Once I noticed the issue, I stopped rebooting unnecessarily, so it could be that I stopped rebooting right at the point at which things worked themselves out.

I've got some kernel tweaking to do, so if the issue comes back, I'll be ready with the video.  No more rebooting remotely until I either catch it in the act or give up the hunt.

Thanks for your response, it helped me get a little farther down the road.