Unable to replace key

[sonofdbn]

I've been having problems with my unRAID flash drive and tried to replace it.

 

I followed the manual: made a backup to my Win10 PC via the WebGUI, then used USB Flash Creator with the zip backup to make a new unRAID flash drive. Then I shutdown the server and replaced the original flash drive with the new one. After restarting the server I got the expected message about the registration key and navigated to the Replace Key button (manual is a bit out of date here) and selected it.

 

Then I got the following error message after clicking confirm in this window:

 

What do I do now?

[itimpi]

6 minutes ago, sonofdbn said:

I've been having problems with my unRAID flash drive and tried to replace it.

 

I followed the manual: made a backup to my Win10 PC via the WebGUI, then used USB Flash Creator with the zip backup to make a new unRAID flash drive. Then I shutdown the server and replaced the original flash drive with the new one. After restarting the server I got the expected message about the registration key and navigated to the Replace Key button (manual is a bit out of date here) and selected it.

 

Then I got the following error message after clicking confirm in this window:

 

What do I do now?

I would suggest you contact support giving them the details.   They tend to be quite responsive.

[dragon2611]

I'm wondering if that whole system has a problem as I can't register a new server to connect and I've seen a post in the forum that suggests someone else is having similar issues.

[sonofdbn]

15 minutes ago, itimpi said:

I would suggest you contact support giving them the details.   They tend to be quite responsive.

 

A bit more background: the original flash drive (Sandisk Cruzer Blade) has been in use from about 2016, and over the last couple of months I've had problems with the flash drive not being found, but rebooting or moving to another USB port solved the problem. This time, unRAID said it couldn't find the GUID and after shutting down the server and trying to read the drive on my Win 10 PC, I couldn't read the drive at all. And of course, after upgrading a few disks, I didn't have a recent copy of the drive assignments, or a recent backup of the flash drive.

 

After panicking just a little, I tried another USB port and was able to read the drive. The first thing I did was copy the contents to the PC, then I tried it on the server, which booted into the GUI but said there had been an unclean shutdown and the array didn't start. Weirdly, the GUI also showed a missing drive but after a minute or so the drive showed up (although the array still didn't start). So that was when I made the zip backup of the flash drive and that's the zip I used for the new flash drive (also Sandisk Cruzer Blade).

 

Then I started wondering if there might have been a problem reading the original drive, because previously it did work after just moving it or rebooting, and maybe that's why it reported an unclean shutdown. So I shut down the server (which had the new flash drive where I couldn't replace the key) and changed back to the original key and rebooted. Now the server is running fine and there was no message about an unclean shutdown.

 

So I've made another zip backup and overwrote the new flash drive with the new backup, in case the previous zip had some corrupted files. I'll test it tomorrow, because things will get very frosty at home if I interrupt someone's already delayed Plex watching tonight. If that fails, I'll contact support.

 

28 minutes ago, dragon2611 said:

I'm wondering if that whole system has a problem as I can't register a new server to connect and I've seen a post in the forum that suggests someone else is having similar issues.

 

I did have a bit of a connection issue because the manual (https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/changing-the-flash-device/) doesn't mention unRAID Connect, which I didn't realise is more or less mandatory now and hadn't installed. Then I had a problem because I had three unRAID entries in my authorisation app from the time the unRAID.net accounts were re-done. Eventually got there, and it wasn't too difficult.

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, sonofdbn said:

I did have a bit of a connection issue because the manual (https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/changing-the-flash-device/) doesn't mention unRAID Connect, which I didn't realise is more or less mandatory now and hadn't installed. Then I had a problem because I had three unRAID entries in my authorisation app from the time the unRAID.net accounts were re-done. Eventually got there, and it wasn't too difficult.

It is mentioned at the top level of the documentation link

[sonofdbn]

9 hours ago, itimpi said:

It is mentioned at the top level of the documentation link

 

Yes, it is indeed. What I should have stated more clearly is that Unraid Connect is not mentioned in the page Changing the flash device (other than as an alternative way of backing up - more on this below).

 

Anyway, I'm happy to report that using the new zip file on the new flash drive worked, eventually, and now I have the server up and running again. But some things worth noting:

1. Before I swapped the flash drives, of course I shut down the server, which had no error messages. But when I restarted with the new flash drive, the GUI told me an unclean shutdown had been detected, and the array therefore didn't start. Not a big problem, but this meant that when the server eventually restarted with the new flash drive it started a parity check. I was too scared to cancel it, so it's going to trundle along for a while (16TB dual parity).

 

2. I had previously installed Unraid Connect in order to get to the Replace Key process, but it didn't show up during this replacement process, and I had to install it again. Previously I had logged on to Unraid.net via Unraid Connect, but I didn't "sign up" for Management Access. It looks like when I rebooted, perhaps because of not signing up, Unraid Connect didn't "stick" so the server acted as if Unraid Connect wasn't there. This causes various problems for the unsuspecting (I'm on 6.11.5):

 

If I click on the Registration Key link as shown in the manual I don't get the screen below (from the manual):

 

Instead I get:

 

When I go to the to right I see:

 

When I click on Replace Key I get a pop-up:

 

So this eventually got me to the right place, but setting this out here for anyone who doesn't have Unraid Connect.

 

That said, I thought I might as well make use of Unraid Connect, so I went to its Settings and got the certificates done, and everything looked OK. Then I saw the Flash backup option, and of course I wanted to use that. But I got "Failed to sync flash backup":

 

How do I backup the flash drive?