Hi all, I have this weird problem where anytime I download something on my server, the server become completely unresponsive. It doesn't matter if I'm downloading torrents or something from the app store, until the download is finished everything is unresponsive. I have a 1 gig connection from Verizon and I've tried turning down the speed in QBittorrent to like 10mbs but I still see the issue.

 

 

The other thing is that not only does the entire server become unresponsive, but many times so does my entire home network/Internet. All devices just time out when loading webpages or do anything.

 

 

I've had my server for about 3 years and this problem started happening somewhat recently. Has anybody else experienced this?

swagserver-diagnostics-20240630-1452.zip

Try using a disk share (or exclusive share) if possible for the downloads, if that doesn't help, using a dedicated pool may also help.

Before I ask about disk shares, I wanted to make 1 clarification. This unresponsive behavior also happens when the docker container updater downloads updates as well.

That could be related if they are also using /mnt/user, is the docker image on a pool or the array?

The docker image is on a separate cache pool along with the appdata and other system shares.

But image path is /mnt/user tho

Try disk paths.

This seems to be the same issue I am having. Just wanted it noted. I have throwed time and money at the issue. My only hardware left to replace will soon be the backplanes or chassis. 

@JorgeB A few questions:

 

If I were to set up a new disk share for downloading to the cache pool, would I need to manually move the items from that share to the original downloads share in the array?

 

 

Also I do have a cache pool that the downloads go to but I would need to remove all other shares from accessing that pool? And the downloads wouldn't need to live in the pool right? I could move them after they are done?

 

8 hours ago, Swagnoor19 said:

If I were to set up a new disk share

You don't need to create anything new, just change the mapping from /mnt/user to /mnt/pool_name

 

 

so I changed the path for the download client docker and tried to download something, sever still froze 😢

Btw I want to mention the server is still accessible via keyboard and monitor, it's just unresponsive when accessing over the network 

Did you also try using a dedicated download pool? And if you are downloading torrents make sure it's not btrfs or zfs. If neither of these help, I'm afraid I don't have other suggestions.

Wait my cache pool is btrfs... Is that bad? I thought that was the default?

6 hours ago, Swagnoor19 said:

Is that bad?

It is for torrents, same as zfs, because of being COW filesystems

I see so could changing the fs type be a solution?

It's worth a try with xfs.

Ive been having this very same issue, took me a while to realise it was the downloads and updates that kept making my server unresponsive. @Swagnoor19 did you ever resolve this? Did changing the file type help?

So it's been a while but this issue did get fixed after a while... The problem is I don't remember if I did something to fix it or if it magically fixed itself 🫠

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful but maybe paste my original message in a LLM and see if it can help you troubleshoot. It could be an issue with pihole/adguard if you are running one of those. Or maybe the CPU/memory/disk is maxing out for some reason. Lemme know how the troubleshooting goes!

12 hours ago, Wispa said:

Ive been having this very same issue, took me a while to realise it was the downloads and updates that kept making my server unresponsive. @Swagnoor19 did you ever resolve this? Did changing the file type help?

1. Make sure the docker.img file is not located on one of your array disks

2. Stop the array, go to settings, global share settings, and enable exclusive shares.

In order for a share to go exclusive that share has to only exist on a single pool, if any folders or files are in multiple locations it won’t function as an exclusive share.

This will allow you to continue to use /mnt/user/share instead of changing everything to /mnt/pool/share and will significantly lessen the effects of IOWAIT on the system due to FUSE overhead.