I had a freezing Sonicwall that was absolutely driving me mad. I tried to work with Sonicwall support to figure out the problem but when the device froze it could not even be accessed via the console cable.
- I changed the firewall suspecting a hardware problem.
- I wiped the device and imported the configuration file again.
- I upgraded and downgraded the firmware versions.
None of these changed fixed the freezing issue so I started suspecting a configuration problem.
I began to remove custom rules and objects. When I got to an object for a whitelisted Geo-IP Web site, I could not delete it. The error message was stating that the object X0 LAN Interface could not be deleted despite the object being a WAN type. The object’s edit button also showed me X0 properties and the LAN IP even though the address objects list showed its WAN IP address. This was my clue that the configuration file had a problem.
I could not delete the object from the address objects list so I went to security services –> Geo-IP filter, and removed the enable customs list checkmark from the settings tab. Then I wen to the custom list tab and deleted the offending object.
I opted to try and see if this fixed the issue before resorting to wiping the configuration and starting from scratch. Unfortunately this did not fix the issue either. The final step was to wipe the device and manually configure the device again. It’s time consuming and an inconvenience to everyone (if you have a lot of custom configurations) but in my case it’s the only remedy. After reconfiguring the device manually, the device freezing ceased.
If your device is remote an you have out-of-band management, follow these steps to save yourself an on-site visit.