My unraid server runs perfectly and then for no particular reason its stops all together. I cant even ping the machine! This is an installation that has been working perfectly for a few years. I only have simple features, sabnzbd, plex and crashplan installed. Which has not been an issue at all. This is happening at least once a day. I have to push the power button in to initiate a shutdown. The pc seems to be shutting down normally and the process takes about a minute. What is really concerning me is that after powering up again the machine is running a parity check. I obviously cant capture a syslog when this happens but I have included the current one now. Hope somebody can help!

 

Thanks for taking the time to read.

syslog_4_may_2013.txt

May  4 05:32:46 Tower emhttp: unclean shutdown detected, checking parity...

 

The system is not shutting down correctly. See my sig to disable all add-ons for testing.

First, as noted above, revert the system to "stock" and see if the issue persists.

 

Second, do you have a UPS on the system?  If not, you may be having some power "glitches" that are freezing the server.

 

The parity check after an improper shutdown is normal.    If you install UnMenu and the CleanPowerDown package, the system should do a normal powerdown when you press the power button, which would at least eliminate the parity check when you start it up again 

Thanks for the advice guys. I have formatted and reinstalled unraid on the flash drive so that I am running absolute stock unraid. The only plugin I have installed is the apcupsd plugin so that my server can shutdown cleanly as we have many power failures here.

 

Unfortunately the problem persists. It seems to be happening when there is a lot of disk activity like a parity sync. I can see the server working away as the HDD led is still going but I cant access at all. I still cant even ping the unraid box.

 

So as I have a stock unraid installation aside from apcupsd I can only assume that there is a hardware issue? I have already run a memtest overnight without a single error. All drives seem to be ok running smart tests. Could it be the power supply? The power supply is a 600w power supply and there are 8 drives installed.

 

Any other suggestions?

Unstable power is always a possibility, as it can cause a wide variety of random problems.  However, it seems somewhat unlikely in this case, as the system appears to be running fine - you just can't access the Web GUI.    In addition, since you have a UPS, you are reasonably well insulated from power line fluctuations from your utility company.

 

I'd try an add-in network adapter -- preferably an Intel, as they tend to be the most reliable.

 

Two other questions: 

 

(1)  Can you Telnet into the server okay when the Web GUI isn't responding?

 

(2)  Are you running the latest release (RC12a)?

 

 

Thanks for the reply. Cant telnet at all. Cant even ping. I am going to try another NIC and see what happens. I am fairly sure the UPS is fine.

Thanks for the reply. Cant telnet at all. Cant even ping. I am going to try another NIC and see what happens. I am fairly sure the UPS is fine.

Can you log onto the system console?

I have not tried that Joe. I will connect a keyboard later today and wait for the innevitable! Thanks

The board does have two onboard NIC's so I will try the other one and see how that goes. Will keep keyboard and screen connected and run the tail command on syslog.

Forgot to answer with unraid version. Running the latest rc12

Ok. I think I may have found the issue. I have an SiL 3114 sata card that two of my hard drives are plugged into. I just tried restarting my Unraid box and it hung on the Sata card screen. This is just before where it would normally start booting from the unraid flash.

 

I have attached the image to this post.

 

 

If I unplug the Sata cables from the card to my two hard drives then it will get to the unraid boot screen at which point I switched off the PC.

 

I have already flashed the bios on this card to get it working with unraid and it has been working fine for a good 3 months. Could this have been causing the issue? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

 

Also, in the mean time is it possible to boot unraid without these two drives plugged in and run the array so that I can access all the other hard drives?

 

IT Joys!

Sounds like that's the issue -- you simply need to replace the card and all should be well.

 

Thanks.  I posted another thread about what I am about to ask.  If I take the card out along with the two drives can I start a "new config"  from utils menu to rebuild the parity and protect the remaining drives? I then plan to copy the information from the other two drives using another pc back to the array.  I don't really need the extra drives at the moment.  Just want to get my array back up so I can use it.