Backup USB Flash Drive never ends

[hf00]

Hello,

 

Just before upgrading from 6.8.3 to 6.9.0 i discovered that i can't backup my USB flash drive.

=> So when trying to initiate the "Flash Backup" action, it just hangs on 'Please wait... creating Flash backup zip file (this may take several minutes ... hours)'   (tested fromr Firefox and Chrome).

My last backup worked 3 months ago.

 

I connected the Flash Drive to my PC and make à full backup with Win32 Disk imager.

 

Then I upgraded to 6.9.0 and try many Flach backups but no one ends!!!

 

Everything else is working fine, any suggestions?

 

Fred.

[S80_UK]

Hi - I am just giving this a bump, since I am also seeing something similar.  I am not sure when this issue started, but it could have been with 6.9.0 - certainly I used to back up reliably when using 6.8.3

 

I wonder if my flash is somehow dropping back to USB 1 kind of speeds.  And in case any one asks - it is a USB 2 flash device in a USB 2 socket (my motherboard cannot boot from it's external USB ports). 

 

Update: So I change to my spare Unraid USB. This is a newer 16GB Lexar, but also USB 2.  Initial testing in the same port shows that for some reason the port / device combination is in my case down-grading after start up to USB 1, half-speed - a paltry 6Mbits/sec  Initial access during boot seems fine.  I now need to try to figure out why this is happening.  Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H.  

Edited April 1, 2021 by S80_UK

[ChatNoir]

Anything hint related to that in the log ?

[S80_UK]

I am still digging.  So far, I have determined that the change in the USB performance that affects the flash memory speed is triggered when there is an unhandled interrupt (IRQ 16 in my case).  That unhandled interrupt is then disabled according to the log.  So far, I am at the stage where I can make this happen, and the cause is a little surprising.  My server is wired to a 4-port KVM box to switch the HDMI and USB connections to my screen, keyboard and mouse.   It seems that either switching away from the server (to use another computer) or switching back to the server (to see what's going on) may cause IRQ 16 to be disabled.  I am not yet sure which of these two it is, or whether it may be either.   If I reboot the server and do not switch the KVM (the interrupt does not get disabled) then I am able to backup the flash from the web GUI in the usual manner.

 

Some googling around led me to run the command lspci -vv  (note, that's a double v, not a w).  That tells me that IRQ 16 is associated with both a chipset USB controller and also with my Dell H310 HBA.  That's as far as I got last night.   Now, on the HBA, the IRQ was masked off with a piece of tape to allow reliable boot up with a previous mother board.  When I swapped motherboards about a month ago, I forgot to check if that tape was still needed.  So my next check is to try removing that and then see if the machine will still boot and if the IRQ is then still being disabled after the KVM switch.  However, I believe that the USB slow down was happening before the motherboard swap. 

 

I suspect this problem is due to the KVM.  I think the problem appeared for me when I switched from using an old KVM that switched VGA signals to a newer one that switched HDMI (around the time that I change monitors).  As far as I can tell, the interrupt is being disabled due to the HDMI switching.  I have just about eliminated the keyboard switching as a cause by disconnecting the USB lead between the server and the KVM and using a separate keyboard connected directly to the server.  If it turns out that the KVM is responsible, then I can probably live with this for now by not using the KVM for the monitor switching.   (My monitor has multiple inputs, so the use of the KVM here was more for convenience.).  And even when the IRQ has been disabled, the flash is still accessible and appears to work normally - just at a tiny fraction of the expected speed.   

[S80_UK]

More follow up:

I tried allowing the interrupt on the HBA card to connect.  As with my previous motherboard, I could then not boot (just loads of error beeps).  So I masked the pins again and was back as before.  Further testing has shown that the IRQ 16 Disabled error (which happens just before the USB flash access is slowed down) is triggered simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the HDMI lead from the monitor.  As far as I can tell, my KVM switch does not create a virtual HDMI sink on the inputs that are not being fed to the monitor, and so the server sees exactly the same situation every time that I change the source in the KVM away from and then back to the server.  And specifically, it seems to be the HDMI reconnection that causes this.

 

I have no clue as to why this happens, or how it could be prevented.  For me the answer is not to switch the KVM back to the server after start up.  Or if I do, to know that the access to the USB flash is then compromised.  For all I know, this could be a function of the mother board, the chipset (I have seen it with Z77 and B75) or the processor (Xeon E3-1275 v2).  I am not going to spend more time on this currently.  If I find a better KVM I may give it a try, but I have other things to spend time on.

 

@hf00 - I am not sure if you've read through my ramblings above.  It would be interesting to know whether your problem backing up the flash has any correlation with the HDMI disconnect / reconnect that I have described.  

 

   

[hf00]

Hello @S80_UK

 

I change to my spare Flash Drive too but nothing change.

 

No speed problem, when i share the Flash Device, the copy of the files to my PC is fast. I don't have any screen attached to my Unraid server!

 

Fred.

[S80_UK]

Hi @hf00, thank you for the quick reply.  I am sorry that I hijacked your post, but the problems that you and I saw (failure to complete a back-up) were the same.  It seems quite likely that they may have different triggers, and it's only a possibility that they then go wrong similarly after that.  From your sig I can see that our two setups have relatively little in common so there are no obvious clues there.

 

My flash access remains absolutely OK, and at normal speed until I trigger the fault.  After that the flash access slows down massively.  My UPS data connection (also on USB) also seems to suffer and sometimes the server then fails to read the UPS status.

 

As mentioned, I shall keep plugging away at it from time to time.  I'll add any new information that I come up with.  I may also try a prior Unraid build (perhaps back to 6.8.3) just to see if changes in the software helped enable this situation.    

 

Thanks again,

 

Les.

[hf00]

Hello,

 

After some time off, I tested backing up my USB drive again, but it never stops like the last time (I tried from Firefox and Chrome).

 

In the log, I see a message 2 minutes after I started a Backup :

 

Jun 26 11:47:21 UNRAID nginx: 2021/06/26 11:47:21 [error] 14465#14465: *9719 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.10.15, server: , request: "POST /webGui/include/Download.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock", host: "192.168.10.251", referrer: "http://192.168.10.251/Main/Flash?name=flash"
Jun 26 11:52:11 UNRAID nginx: 2021/06/26 11:52:11 [error] 14465#14465: *11066 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.10.15, server: , request: "POST /webGui/include/Download.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock", host: "192.168.10.251", referrer: "http://192.168.10.251/Main/Flash?name=flash"
Jun 26 11:59:02 UNRAID nginx: 2021/06/26 11:59:02 [error] 14465#14465: *12205 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.10.15, server: , request: "POST /webGui/include/Download.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock", host: "192.168.10.251", referrer: "http://192.168.10.251/Main/Flash?name=flash"
Jun 26 12:07:01 UNRAID nginx: 2021/06/26 12:07:01 [error] 14465#14465: *13416 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.10.15, server: , request: "POST /webGui/include/Download.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock", host: "192.168.10.251", referrer: "http://192.168.10.251/Main/Flash?name=flash"
Jun 26 12:13:10 UNRAID nginx: 2021/06/26 12:13:10 [error] 14465#14465: *14676 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.10.15, server: , request: "POST /webGui/include/Download.php HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock", host: "192.168.10.251", referrer: "http://192.168.10.251/Main/Flash?name=flash"

 

@ChatNoir Sorry i didn't see your message in april. 😞

 

Thanks for help.

 

Fred.

 

[doremi]

Has this issue been resolved? I also can't seem to backup my flash drive via the GUI.

[trurl]

53 minutes ago, doremi said:

can't seem to backup my flash drive via the GUI.

How much RAM do you have?

[doremi]

21 minutes ago, trurl said:

How much RAM do you have?

I only have 16GB ECC RAM.

 

I can't back up my Flash drive using Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

Edited August 20, 2021 by doremi
Added more details.

[trurl]

If you had very small RAM that might have been the problem.

 

Do you have any adblockers or anything else interfering with your web browsers?

[doremi]

8 minutes ago, trurl said:

any adblockers

Yes, I do.

 

Having said that, I have just tested the back up process again by disabling my network adblocker and removing all adblock plugins from one browser (safari). Unfortunately, the backup process was still timing out.

 

Aug 20 13:36:31 UnRAID nginx: 2021/08/20 13:36:31 [error] 8704#8704: *7537943 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.1.114, server: , request: "POST /webGui/include/Download.php HTTP/2.0", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock", host: "a189c36bfe0d768a7142e859974ff75f2fcf51ec.unraid.net", referrer: "https://a189c36bfe0d768a7142e859974ff75f2fcf51ec.unraid.net/Main/Flash?name=flash"

 

Not sure if it's related. I noticed "invalid API key" message from myServersError when I enabled web inspector on safari.

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by doremi

[doremi]

21 minutes ago, doremi said:

invalid API key" message from myServersError

Surprisingly, I can now back up my flash drive AFTER logging out of myServers. The backup was successful on Firefox (adblock), Safari (no adblock) and Chrome (adblock) with network blocking enabled.

 

Not sure why disabling myServers fixed my issue.

[trurl]

How large is your flash drive?

[ChatNoir]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

How large is your flash drive?

The actual content, not the total capacity.  

[trurl]

10 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

The actual content, not the total capacity.  

No actually I was wondering about the total capacity. My Servers puts .git folder on there for its backup.

Actual content size would be good to know too, though. Maybe if too much extra stuff has been stored on flash it could also have an effect.

[hf00]

19 hours ago, doremi said:

Has this issue been resolved? I also can't seem to backup my flash drive via the GUI.

No change, backup never ends!

[doremi]

On 8/21/2021 at 8:56 AM, hf00 said:

No change, backup never ends!

Try logging out of myServers (top right hand corner). That worked for me.

 

On 8/20/2021 at 2:29 PM, trurl said:

How large is your flash drive?

32GB

[skulker]

I too am having the issue of my flash backup never completing. Of course a google search led me to this post.

 

I have 2 unraid servers both at 6.8.2.

 

Both configured the same.

 

On 1 the flash backup completes in a couple of minutes. on the other it goes on forever.

 

I do not use MyServers.

 

Any suggestions for me please?

 

TIA!

[Squid]

If the spinner doesn't disappear before exactly 120 seconds, it will never disappear (pretty much this is the same over the entire UI).  In the case of flash backup this means that the time required (for whatever reason) to create the backup exceeded 120 seconds, so it'll appear like it never completed. 

 

Since this is happening consistently on your one server, your work around is to simply create the backup yourself by copying the files from the flash somewhere else (over SMB via the flash share works perfectly).  There's nothing else special happening.

 

As an aside, next rev of 6.10 increases the timeout from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.

[hf00]

I recently found out that the ZIP backup file is being created in the cache/appdata folder despite the error. I tested today and it took exactly 140 seconds ! 🙂

 

Thanks for the explication.

 

Fred.

[trurl]

2 hours ago, hf00 said:

ZIP backup file is being created in the cache/appdata folder

Seems unlikely since Unraid isn't going to assume you have that folder and wouldn't think it is going to look around to try figure out where to save it.

 

Are you sure CA Backup plugin didn't create that instead?

 

  

On 3/8/2021 at 7:09 AM, hf00 said:

initiate the "Flash Backup" action

Do you mean you are going to Main - Boot Device - Flash and clicking the Flash Backup button? The result of that action is a download to your browser of the zipped flash backup.

[hf00]

21 hours ago, trurl said:

Seems unlikely since Unraid isn't going to assume you have that folder and wouldn't think it is going to look around to try figure out where to save it.

 

Are you sure CA Backup plugin didn't create that instead?

 

  

Do you mean you are going to Main - Boot Device - Flash and clicking the Flash Backup button? The result of that action is a download to your browser of the zipped flash backup.

Yes I use the Flash backup but have no more download option from the browser (it never ends). In the same time, i saw the zip file appearing in the file explorer (cache/appdata), file gradually growing and ending after 140s. Then i could copy this zip file to an external disk!

 

PS : I have CA Backup too with a weekly shedule.

[jbquintal]

I'm having the same issue.  I'm just stuck at this page for hours on end.  I can access the flash drive and manually copy files off of it.  What's a good way to manually back things up and create the zip?

Is there a