Upgrading from 12.1.3.7 to 13.1.1.1 error message - "double quotes are not balanced"

[Frank_Nsubuga_3]

Hi,

I'm trying to upgrade a BigIP and keep getting this error message.

I was able to go from 11.6 to 12.1, but 13.1 doesn't seem to like the config file being applied.

Full error message whe I tried from 11.6 to 13.1: emerg load_config_files: "/usr/bin/tmsh -n -g load sys config partitions all " - failed. -- Loading schema version: 11.6.0 Syntax Error:(/config/bigip.conf at line: 3874) double quotes are not balanced

Full error message when I went from 12.1 to 13.1: emerg load_config_files: "/usr/bin/tmsh -n -g load sys config partitions all " - failed. -- Loading schema version: 12.1.3.7 Syntax Error:(/config/bigip.conf at line: 5844) double quotes are not balanced

Even if I go in and remove/ comment out the affect lines, it still fails.

Has anyone experienced this before?

As a note, the referenced line is nothing to do with iRules, so it's not the known bug listen on the upgrade. The line where the issue is changes everytime I comment or remove a line in the Bigip.conf file.

Any help is appreciated.

[Stanislas_Piro2]

Did you search what is the line 5844 of file /config/bigip.conf ???

[Frank_Nsubuga_3]

For anyone seeing this or experiencing the same issue, the problem is apparently there was a change in version 13 for how iRules are processed through CLI when the BIGIP.conf file is read in.

To complete the upgrade we had to manually remove iRules from the bigip.conf file, perform the upgrade and load the configuration in without the iRules, then put them back into the BigIP.conf file.

https://cdn.f5.com/product/bugtracker/ID668041.html

The above shows a bug related to the issue, but applying the recommended fix didn't work for us.

[Frank_Nsubuga_3]

Turns out this was a bug in the config file when upgrading the versions.

The recommended F5 fix did not work at the time.

The solution was to remove the majority of the config, upgrade the device and then put the config back.