[SOLVED] Unable to save some settings from the WebUI

[CodeThief]

Hi all,

 

I'm running Unraid v6.9.2 and am having some odd issues with saving settings via the WebUI.

 

I had an issue yesterday where Unraid suddenly reported that my flash drive (a Sandisk 2GB stick) was set as read-only.  I shut down the server, stuck the drive into a Windows PC and it reported it as damaged; Windows dutifully repaired the drive (and chkdsk reports no problems), but since then I haven't been able to save some specific settings - the screen just refreshes and the changes are gone again.

 

The things it won't save that I've found so far are:

 

• The image of the server in the dashboard on the top-left (this changed by itself after repairing the drive).
• Notification settings including filling in the Agent config for Telegram

 

I'm able to successfully add more Docker containers and the config for those saves OK so I'm guessing the problem lies with my USB stick somewhere.  When I plugged it into my Windows PC I checked in DISKPART if the disk or volume was read-only and both reported they weren't.  I'm also not seeing any further errors from Unraid about writing to the drive, so I'm not sure what's going on.

 

I only purchased Unraid less than 48 hours ago using this stick, so I'm not keen on trying another stick and using up my 12 month license change in the first 2 days!

 

I'm struggling to upload my diagnostics .zip from this PC, so I'll upload it in the next post from another device...

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Edited September 4, 2021 by CodeThief

[CodeThief]

Diagnostics attached

server-diagnostics-20210902-1143.zip

[trurl]

Are you booting from USB2 port? You should.

[CodeThief]

As far as I'm aware, yes I am.  My motherboard has black and blue ports and I'm plugged into a black one.

 

EDIT: I've just checked in the manual and the black ports are USB2.  The blue ones are USB 3.1.

Edited September 2, 2021 by CodeThief

[trurl]

3 hours ago, CodeThief said:

issues with saving settings via the WebUI.

What browser? Do you have adblocker or anything else that might interfere?

[CodeThief]

I'm using Chrome v92.  It was working using exactly the same browser the day before though...  I don't have any Adblocker plugins for anything.

 

I'll check on Edge Chromium also...

 

EDIT: Same on Edge Chromium

 

I've also noticed that my array gets parity checked every time I boot which I guess is also leaning towards a flash drive problem if Unraid isn't writing that it's completed one.

Edited September 2, 2021 by CodeThief

[CodeThief]

Does anyone know the location of the configuration files that get written to when you change notification or server image settings?  I'd like to check for permissions issues etc.

 

Also, is there any sort of debug logging I can enable?  Nothing appears in the syslog when I try these failing procedures.

[itimpi]

4 hours ago, CodeThief said:

I'd like to check for permissions issues etc.

There should really never be any permission issues as the flash drive is FAT32 and that does not support linux permissions.   If settings are not saving this strongly suggests the flash drive either has a problem, or is dropping offline, and I would expect either condition to show up in the syslog.  Have you pried bringing up the syslog before attempting a change so you can see if entries are getting generated?

[trurl]

On 9/2/2021 at 10:15 AM, CodeThief said:

my array gets parity checked every time I boot which I guess is also leaning towards a flash drive problem if Unraid isn't writing that it's completed one.

It does suggest a flash drive problem, but not because it hasn't completed a parity check. You will always get a parity check for unclean shutdown.

 

 

[itimpi]

On 9/2/2021 at 3:15 PM, CodeThief said:

I've also noticed that my array gets parity checked every time I boot which I guess is also leaning towards a flash drive problem if Unraid isn't writing that it's completed one.

some people get this because the default timeouts for stopping VMx, docker, disks are too short for their system so you get a forced shutdown which then leads to an automatic parity check on the next boot.

 

you might want to try simply stopping the array (rather than doing a shutdown) when it is running its normal workload and time how long that takes.   You can then make sure the timeouts are large enough.    If the array disks will never unmount cleanly you need to look into what is stopping that from happening and rectify that.

[CodeThief]

Great info, thanks. I'll do some more digging...

[CodeThief]

It took 37 seconds to stop my array when it had it's normal idle load running on it.  The docker timeout is 10 seconds and the VM manager one is 60 seconds.  I'm not clear on how this relates to my array stopping though?  Aren't the docker containers and VMs shut down first, then the array stopped?

[trurl]

1 hour ago, CodeThief said:

Aren't the docker containers and VMs shut down first, then the array stopped?

Yes

 

There is also a Shutdown time-out in Disk Settings.

 

Click on a setting label for help on the setting.

[CodeThief]

Fixed it!

 

I created a new Unraid USB stick to compare the contents and found the only obvious thing that was different was that I was missing a "dynamix" folder under /config/plugins.  I had a file called "dynamix", but not a folder; something must have gotten corrupted somehow.  Anyway, I deleted the file, copied the folder over and everything is working as expected again.

 

So the server image and the notification settings are all stored in the /config/plugins/dynamix folder for anyone who stumbles across this in the future

[itimpi]

55 minutes ago, CodeThief said:

So the server image and the notification settings are all stored in the /config/plugins/dynamix folder for anyone who stumbles across this in the future

All User settings (and the licence file) are stored in the ‘config’ folder.   This is the key thing you therefore want backed up if you ever need to recreate your flash drive.

[CodeThief]

Sure, but these settings specifically are in the dynamix folder. The others are all obviously named and in the /config folder but these ones weren't obvious so I thought I'd call them out for others in the future.

 

Thanks for your assistance and suggestions!

Edited September 4, 2021 by CodeThief