fwconsole cannot start and stop asterisk.
I can launch asterisk manually and freepbx operates normally, but it just cannot start and stop it using fwconsole.
asterisk seems to be running as a process under root. On another box, not yet upgraded, it runs as asterisk
Did you follow this: http://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FOP/Version+13.0+Installation
Asterisk should NOT EVER be run as root. fwconsole start attempts to run asterisk as whatever you have set the asterisk user to (generally asterisk). This user must exist.