failed upgrade

[Steve1985]

About an hour ago i pressed the update button in the UnRAID GUI. My unraid server was on version 6.10.3. Should be straight forward.

 

However at the moment i can't reach the GUI and ping reply is intermittend. Am i being unpatient or is something wrong? Should it take this long to update? unfortunately i don't have a screen connected. To do this i'd have to move the server (a intel nuc 8th generation) and unplug it. So i'd prefer to not do this as it could still be busy updating.

 

Is there any other troubleshooting steps i could take to check what's going on?

 

--- 192.168.1.6 ping statistics ---
223 packets transmitted, 18 received, +82 errors, 91,9283% packet loss, time 226610ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.152/1.981/3.539/0.628 ms, pipe 4

[Frank1940]

19 minutes ago, Steve1985 said:

About an hour ago i pressed the update button in the UnRAID GUI. My unraid server was on version 6.10.3. Should be straight forward.

Was it here that you pressed the update button? 

The reason for the question is that it is necessary to know if you were updating the flash drive with the files for the new versions or rebooting the server to install the new version of Unraid on the server from that updated flash drive.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Frank1940

[Steve1985]

Yes it was there. And i did press "reboot now" when it appeared.

[JorgeB]

You need to connect a monitor to see where the boot stopped.

[Frank1940]

The system is in the bootup process and it should be no problem created by shutting it down.  Try a quick push of the power switch to shut down.  (If it does not turn off in two minutes, push that power button again for about ten seconds to force a powerdown.)   Then move the server to the location of the monitor.

[Steve1985]

That's impossible without pulling the plug/hard shutdown first. there is no monitor in the cupboard where the server is.

[Steve1985]

Some progress... i think the same is happening after the last time i tried to upgrade: random reboots.

 

Last time i went back to a older version. Another thing that happened last time as well: the name of the server changed to Tower. As far as i can tell no other settings have changed.

 

I did have some issues with the flash drive but i thought a fsck fixed this. So the name of the server changing could be unrelated to the upgrade but the timing is off.

 

I managed to download the diagnostic file. But at the moment can't change the name of the server. The array won't stop. The "array" consists of 2 SSD drives. All the actual data is on a Synology NAS.

It does look like the Array is semi stopped as when i try to access the docker page it says "array need to be started to access dockers" or something... but i can't adjust the server name in the settings.

 

Diagnostics attached.

tower-diagnostics-20221227-1623.zip

[trurl]

27 minutes ago, Steve1985 said:

the name of the server changed to Tower

That suggests a problem with the flash drive. If config/ident.cfg can't be read it defaults to Tower. Possibly other things on flash are also affected.

 

Do you have a current flash backup?

[Steve1985]

Yes i pulled a backup. And I have a automated backup dating back to the 20th on the old OS version.

 

I am in the process of preparing a new flash drive but i only have a 128GB laying around nothing smaller. I created a 32GB partition as i read that 32GB maximum is recommended.

 

I only have a linux laptop no mac/windows PC so figuring out how to transfer the backup on the new flash drive.

[Frank1940]

5 minutes ago, Steve1985 said:

I only have a linux laptop no mac/windows PC so figuring out how to transfer the backup on the new flash drive.

 

There is a    make_bootable_linux  file in the root of my flash drive so I assume you can use that file to make the flash drive bootable.  Here is a link to the instructions for creating a boot drive:

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/Articles/Getting_Started#Manual_Install_Method

[Steve1985]

Yes tried that method. Getting the following error:
FAIL: unRAID Flash drive detected but unable to detect where it is currently mounted, aborting!

So i am guessing Unraid doesn't like partitions on the flash drive?

 

Is 128GB really too much? Is it better to just label the entire 128GB flash as UNRAID? Don't think i can format this as FaT32

[itimpi]

8 minutes ago, Steve1985 said:

Yes tried that method. Getting the following error:
FAIL: unRAID Flash drive detected but unable to detect where it is currently mounted, aborting!

So i am guessing Unraid doesn't like partitions on the flash drive?

 

Is 128GB really too much? Is it better to just label the entire 128GB flash as UNRAID? Don't think i can format this as FaT32

The FAT32 is a requirement which is why a maximum of 32GB is recommended as that is the largest standard Windows will format to FAT32.  There are 3rd party tools around that can format larger drives to FAT32.    I think the Unraid USB Creator tool may also handle this but I am not sure.    Having said that 128GB is a huge overkill as even 8GB is more than enough for Unraid. 

[Steve1985]

I don't really care about overkill. I just want a working server. A simple upgrade procedure turned into a complete nightmare. I could have used this day off for a lot of other much more useful things. Not that that is obviously anyone's fault here i am great full for all the suggestions but just a general comment.

 

I can't use the unraid installer tool because i don't use macs or windows PC's. Linux only.

 

So should i try again to create a smaller partition? Why is the linux method not working. Syslinux is installed on this laptop.

[trurl]

Probably simpler to get another flash drive, 32G or smaller, USB2 is actually better than USB3 for this purpose.

[itimpi]

33 minutes ago, Steve1985 said:

I can't use the unraid installer tool because i don't use macs or windows PC's. Linux only

I believe that it is quite easy to get Linux to format drives larger than 32GB to FAT32.   A bit of Googling should give you directions.

[Steve1985]

Formatting drives is not the problem. I used gparted to create a 32 GB FAT32 partition. When that didn't work a 16GB fat32 partition. When that didn't work i formatted the entire flash drive to FAT32.

 

None of this works and it all throws the same error as posted above. And the server with the current flash drive keeps randomly rebooting. Since this needs to be solved now and i don't have more time to waste on this i need to resolve this with the current or the old flash drive i don't care.

 

Getting a smaller new flash drive is not a option. It's 18:26 shops are closed and ordering online will take too long. Not sure why any OS in 2022 (almost 2023) wouldn't work with a larger drive.

 

If i can't resolve this i'll simply move away from Unraid and ask for a refund. Since i started using this it's been nothing but misery. Apparently it wasn't intended for my use case.

 

[trurl]

4 minutes ago, Steve1985 said:

or the old flash drive

Is there anything wrong with the old flash drive? Can it be reformatted? Better to keep the old flash if it can still be used and so avoid license transfer.

 

[Steve1985]

Not sure if anything is wrong with the old flash drive. I had to repair it several times (with a fsck) and it's been flunky for a while. So replacing it was on the to-do list anyway. 

 

I just found a 16GB flash drive in my office. Tried the legacy method with the backup zip file. Same error. So it's not the drive. The "legacy method" might work with a fresh install ISO but not with a backup.

 

How do i write the backup zip to a new flash drive on linux? 

[trurl]

Just do a fresh install and copy the config folder from your backup.

[Steve1985]

So isn't that explained on this page? https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Changing_The_Flash_Device - that's where i read the instruction to use this:
https://wiki.unraid.net/Articles/Getting_Started#Manual_Install_Method

Which apparently doesn't work with a backup.

[trurl]

You don't need the backup to create a working flash drive. Just download whichever version you need and install it to the flash drive. Then you can use your backup to copy the config folder to that new install. Everything about your configuration is in the config folder.

 

[Steve1985]

OK figured it out and now got it running on the new flash drive. Apparently i was being a dumb idiot and thought the make_bootable script would also copy the files. Frustration doesn't help in these cases.

 

Back to the main topic: The server still randomly reboots. So flash drive issues (i think) can be safely ruled out as a root cause. new diagnostic file attached. What could cause these random reboots?!

 

 

annabelle-diagnostics-20221227-1949.zip

[trurl]

Unrelated (probably)

NerdPack.plg - 2021.08.11  (Up to date)  (Incompatible)

Doesn't look like you were using it anyway. Uninstall and install NerdTools instead if you need.

 

Have you done memtest?

 

Setup syslog server

 

 

[Steve1985]

I installed the memory only few weeks ago. Did a memtest after installation everything was fine. But could do another one just postponing it for now since i would need to move the NUC again to another place (with a keyboard and mouse available).

 

I installed the nerdpack because of unrar but i'll uninstall it now.

 

The random reboots happen only on version 6.11.x. Last time i reverted back to a older version and they stopped. Haven't done that yet giving it a bit more time to try to fix it.

[trurl]

Just now, Steve1985 said:

NUC

You are running on NUC?

 

FYI, SSDs in the array cannot be trimmed.