There seems to be a bit of a problem with upgrades to FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE. Basically, shutdown -r is hanging, requiring you to manually reset the machine (turn it off and on again). This is annoying unless the machine in question happens to be at a data centre on a different continent, in which “annoying” really doesn’t cut it.
This was a known issue with 10.3-STABLE., but it appears to have made it in to -RELEASE too.
I suggest not using freebsd-update. Basically if you follow the official instructions you may need someone on hand to reboot the old fashioned way.
You just have to use mobo with watchdog timer – killall -9 watchdogd&&shutdown -r – it either reboots normally or ich watchdog (or some ipmi watchdog) will press reset or even powercycle the server. 10.x code quality is very annoying – hyperv support gets broken, repaired, broken again, …
I’ve never used freebsd-update – make buildworld and mergemaster -p if things are changed seriously.