pitchinwedge

Well, my unRaid has finished parity check and has been up and running for nearly 24 hours. As always, when it's working, it seems just fine. Just ran the diagnostics as a base line. tower-diagnostics-20181207-0837.zip

Thanks Hoopster, system is running parity check... pretty much unusable until finished. Will try to upload some diagnostics tomorrow.

I think I assembled my current unRaid box sometime in 2011. It has always had issues with random unresponsive/system freezing, requiring a hard reboot. This has been difficult to diagnose and resolve. I've tried asking for help on the forums at various times with little success. The troubleshooting either was beyond me or something else, but it always ended unresolved. I basically just lived with it. But... I just realized I'm sometimes losing data with these random crashes. This is a felony offense 😡. I think whatever wasn't moved before the crash is gone. I've now got the mover running every hour but I really need to get this worked out. My hardware: Biostar TH67+ i3-2100 2GB Kingston Ram Syba PEX40039 Corsair AX750 PSU Parity 4TB WD Gold Disk 1 2TB WD Red Disk 2 1TB WD Black Disk 3 2TB WD Black Disk 4 2TB WD Black Cache 500GB Samsung Spinpoint Yes, I know you need the syslog, but I wasn't able to get it before the box rebooted. Anyways, I've run the memtest for 24 hours with no errors. I've just upgraded to 6.5.3 and updated the few apps I have installed (CA Backup, Community Apps, Fix Common Problems, and Preclear Disks). Again, I know it's hard to help without a syslog but hoping for any suggestions before the next crash. Lastly, here's something I stumbled upon. Fix Common Problems says, "It appears that your server has a Marvel based hard drive controller installed within it. Some users with Marvel based controllers exhibit random drives dropping offline, recurring parity errors during checks etc. This tends to be exacberated if VT-D / IOMMU is enabled in the BIOS. Generally, LSI based controllers would be preferred over Marvel based controllers because of these issues. Note that these issues are out of Limetech's hands. Depending upon the exact combination of hardware present in your server, you may not have any problems whatsoever. If you have no problems, then this warning can be safely ignored, but future versions of unRaid (and later Kernel versions) may (or may not) present you with the previously mentioned issues." Could the Marvel chipset be my issue? If so maybe I'll get a used/refurb Dell Perc H310, to see if it will work.

The ability to select specific folders or pictures to be included in a slideshow is an important feature. A screensaver selecting files for me isn't exactly what I had in mind. Also, Kodi seemed to choke after adding the libraries. Don't know if it's something with my PC or my unRaid, or what. On the other hand, Plex seems to have the most responsive interface in this regard. Edit: I started playing around with Kodi again - this time with a fresh Windows installation. Introducing the media library in small pieces seemed to prevent the seizing I had experienced in the past. Photo and Music file navigation now works very well and I am able to play both at the same time. Cool. The big remaining issue is, once again, video playback. Although Kodi seems to be able to play every type of video file, the playback freezes after a second or two until buffering (I think, that's what's happening) is complete. The freeze can last just a second or even minutes depending on the file size. I've Googled this issue and did not find what seemed like a reliable solution. Any advice on how to reduce the buffering?

Being able to display my photos while also sharing music was always great when entertaining guests. With Windows Media Center on my HTPC, I was able to do this. I played slideshows of photos located on my unRaid server while simultaneously playing background music from files also located on same unRaid server. Even though the WMC interface became quite slow, as my library got larger, I never managed to find a better solution. Now that I've had to reinstall Windows on the HTPC, I no longer have WMC (MSFT no longer supports?!) so I need to find another solution. I've tried messing around with PLEX, Kodi, and Media Portal but they just don't seem to do what I want. What's worse, I've been having issues with video playback with Plex. Kodi and Media Portal seem to just choke when I introduce my media libraries. Not sure what to do. Any suggestions?

Ok, after increasing the amount of memory on the unRaid server to 4GB, I can finally play videos normally on my desktop machine using the "original" quality setting. I noticed CPU utilization remains at 1% instead of jumping to 99% with any other setting. Going to try on the HTPC later tonight to see if it works there as well. This makes me believe two things: 1) the i3-2100 is not powerful enough to transcode my video files to lower quality settings; and 2)my powerline home network that my HTPC is on may not have enough bandwidth to accommodate videos at the original settings.

Kodi for the HTPC sounds interesting. Also, I'm thinking about scrapping the PC for an Apple TV. Everything should be simple and work well since Plex is a native app.

Yes, I tried the Windows app, the web app, and the home theater app. I used to be able to play videos quite well when I had Windows Media Center. I installed a new hard drive in the HTPC and needed to reinstall Windows, which non longer includes WMC. This is the reason I decided to give Plex a try.

So, the playback experience is significantly better when I use the Plex iphone app and display on the TV via Chromecast. This makes no sense to me. Even though I have no idea what the actual playback resolution is, the results are better than a dedicated HTPC with a wired ethernet connection. iphone/Chromecast method = long delay before playback but ability to at least watch some clips. HTPC = can't watch anything. What gives? Anyways, my unRaid server runs on an i3-2100 with 4GB of RAM. Wondering if I can't reduce, or eliminate, the lengthy delay with a more powerful server. I've noticed the i3-2100 CPU utilization almost always at 98% or greater when playing a clip. FWIW, I have an i7-950 with 8GB of RAM that I could cannibalize but I'm not too sure it would be much of an improvement over the i3-2100.

I'm streaming wired within my LAN. Transfers of large files to unRaid server are typically a steady 35MB/s. The network itself is gigabit. Clients I've tested with are my main desktop, 1080p tv via a HTPC, and ipad (over wireless). None of the clients are able to properly playback video files. My plan for the moment is change the current data drive containing docker and Plex into a cache drive. Hoping performance will increase and videos will actually start playing.

Hi, I'm pretty noob to unRaid and total noob to Plex so please be gentle..... Main issue is that I can't play any videos (haven't even tried a movie yet) at better than 4Mbps 720p resolution. Have googled and messed around for the past two days without much success. Perhaps my server (Sandy Bridge i3-2100 @ 3.1Ghz with 2GB of DDR3) just doesn't have enough power for the job? Any help would be appreciated. Additional info: I'm running unRaid v6.1.9 with the Plex application in Docker. Parity + 5 data drives, no cache drive. One of the data drives is entirely for Docker (set to 200GB) and Plex, the rest contain my media.

Can you explain what "system replayed some transactions upon boot" means? I would like to avoid any unclean shutdowns but somehow it seems to keep happening to me once in a while. I checked ls /mnt/user and everything looks as expected to me. Also, I notice on the main page of the webGUI, there is checkmark under Parity next to "Write corrections to parity disk". What does this do?

Hello again... Files and locations (folders, files, etc.) recently added to my unRaid box have all gone missing. It's as if unRaid reverted everything back to how it was before I added my new files. This is just crazy since I don't know if anything edited or added to unRaid will remain. I use Windows 10 and access all my user shares via Windows Explorer. I navigate to whatever folder on the User Share and then drag and drop files (or add/copy/delete the documents, photos, files, etc.) directly to the folder on the User Share. With unRaid 4.7, this method has never been an issue for me. Attached is my latest Diagnostics.zip Please help and thanks. tower-diagnostics-20160104-0942.zip

Ok. Just finished file system check on all disks including cache. No corruptions found.

Thanks for the input. I had already changed my router settings to renew IP every 10 hours. Seems strange that it's renewed after just 5. Anyways, I just went and updated it to 7 days but I'm still getting the handle invalid error. I found that once I get the handle invalid error, I can again access files by taking taking the array offline and then re-starting the array. Not good.

Hi, after recent hardware failure, I upgraded to 6.1.3. I had used 4.7 for a number of years with very little trouble, so I am a confused by the issues I'm now having. It's been about a month now, and the new 6.1.3 has never been stable or reliable. I've tried searching the forums for threads with similar issues but either I'm not finding the answers I need or the problem(s) and resolutions seem to be beyond my understanding and technical ability. I'm posing this now because I think I really need some help to sort this out and would appreciate some guidance. My issues initially were unRaid freezes, ceasing to respond, the WebUI unresponsive, etc. I've kept a monitor and keyboard attached to the unRaid box to attempt to shutdown properly when this happens. This usually fails as well. I just found out about a script that is supposed to automatically write the syslog to the flash drive, so I don't even know if it works yet. I'll try posting it the next time I end up having to hard reboot. A new and almost as annoying symptom, however, is that files and locations (folders, files, etc.) on the unRaid box randomly become "not accessible" and "the handle is invalid" from my PC. All unRaid shares are mapped as network drives. With 4.7, I had never had a problem directly opening files from within applications or accessing them through Windows Explorer. This "handle invalid" error happens quite randomly, but also appears to be happening more and more often. I've attached my latest diagnostic .zip in case it contains anything helpful. Thanks and looking forward to some help. tower-diagnostics-20151123-0916.zip

Fabulous, I think I'll pick up the UPS APC unit. It's sad I lost some data but at least I ended up with an upgraded unraid and it all the damaged parts were replaced under warranty. I'll spend the $$ on the UPS APC as insurance. Thank you again for helping me get back up and the great advice.

So what capacity or size should I be looking for? What's min and what's overkill?

That APC unit does look pretty cool. Thanks for the heads-up. BTW, the power supply was a 3.5 year old Corsair AX750. They have since sent me a new updated AX760.

My flash drive is about 3 old. Would like to get this up and running asap so I've just followed gary's instx. Now staring at the new GUI. Must say, it was a good upgrade. Thanks again gary.

Ok great. I'm going to give it a shot now. Thanks again.

Thank you so much for the quick reply. It sounds like a good plan. Can you explain how to save the key file? I want to be sure not to screw it up.

Nightmare for a newbie. All drives connected on the same SATA power cable got fried. I suspect a power surge or the power supply was faulty and nuked em. One of drives even caught fire. I used to have parity + 6 data drives. I know for sure I lost the parity drive and 2 data drives. I am running version 4.7. While I waited for replacement parts, I managed to extract whatever files to my Windows PC from the still healthy data drives. As of now, I have rebuilt the hardware and the system boots up normally. This time around, I would prefer to have parity, cache, and just 3 data drives. Problem is, no matter how I arrange the drives there are always 3 red dots and I cannot get the array to start. Would appreciate help on what to do next? PS - should I, or is it possible to upgrade to a more recent version of unRaid?

WOW... i finally figured out why my server kept crashing. It was a faulty POWER button. The crashes were absolutely random reboots. That's why non of the efforts to isolate the CPU, PSU, RAM,HD's, etc. didn't work. Fortunately the Biostar TH67+ mobo has an onboard button for power on and restart. I disconnected the power on, restart, and LED wires from the mobo and have not experienced a random reboot since. Maybe this will help.

WOW... i finally figured out why my server kept crashing. It was a faulty POWER button. The crashes were absolutely random reboots. That's why non of the efforts to isolate the CPU, PSU, RAM,HD's, etc. didn't work. Fortunately the Biostar TH67+ mobo has an onboard button for power on and restart. I disconnected the power on, restart, and LED wires from the mobo and have not experienced a random reboot since. Maybe this will help.