F5CABR: F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP Recertification

BIG-IP requires the license to be valid and reactivated for the target software version before the upgrade is performed. If the license was not reactivated prior to booting into the new volume, the configuration fails to load because the licensing check performed during configuration load does not match the requirements of the new version. This is why F5's documented upgrade procedure includes verifying and, if necessary, reactivating the license as a mandatory pre-upgrade step.