Hi,

 

I upgraded to V6 a few months ago, and it usually runs great, but I recently have been experiencing freeze-ups every week or so. When this happens, I cannot access the web GUI, or access the SMB shares. The server seems to continue to display video, but I do not have a keyboard attached to it, so I do not know if it would respond to keyboard inputs. I know it does not respond to a press of the power button. (I have to hold in the power button to get it to power off. I think that is a mobo action, not a sign that the OS is responding in any way.) I am using a cache drive, as well as a few plugins (Recycle Bin and others.) I also have the Plex Media Server docker installed.

 

The way I know I have a freeze-up is not always because I cannot access my shares, but because the server gets unusually loud. Placing my hand behind the server, I can feel it is fairly warm (warmer than usual, I believe.) Therefore, I think that the CPU is stuck in some sort of cycle and it is getting very hot, forcing the fan to run high.

 

I have searching the forums for similar problems, and while other people have freeze-ups with V6, I could not find a situation that was similar to mine. I am running 6.1.8, but just saw that there is an update for 6.1.9. I will make the update soon, but nothing in the changelog made me think that it would necessarily fix the problem I have been having.

 

(Diagnostics attached.)

multivac-diagnostics-20160428-1508.zip

Have you opened up the case and done a check?  Look for clogged intake vents on the case.  Dirty intake filters.  Are all of the fans running?  Is the CPU cooler's fins loaded with dust and dirt?  Have you ever cleaned (with either canned air or a blower) the case, case filters, cooler, fans and PS? 

 

I clean all of my computers thoroughly once a year.  I take them out to the garage because my wife would strangle me if I blew all of the accumulated dirt out into the house!  I have been told to never use a vacuum cleaner because sometimes they can cause static electricity. 

Do you have Plex installed?  Plex usually is scheduled to work on your media overnight.  Some use of the transcoder too.

 

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201553286-Scheduled-Tasks

 

Also the Mover moves files from cache to user shares.

 

... I think that is a mobo action, not a sign that the OS is responding in any way.

 

There's a secondary CPU that's part of the chipset that monitors the power switch, reset switch (if you have one), and PS/2 devices on systems that still have them.    This CPU will generate a reset on the primary CPU (in response to a press of the reset switch); will provide a "power switch interrupt" to the primary CPU when the power switch is pressed; and will automatically turn off the power if the power switch is held for more than approx. 5 seconds.    For many years this was an embedded Intel 8085, but I'm not sure what modern chipsets use.    Some manufacturer's have extended this chipset CPU to do other things -- e.g. Asus has a feature on some motherboards where you can do a BIOS update even without a primary CPU installed on the motherboard.

 

... I clean all of my computers thoroughly once a year.  I take them out to the garage because my wife would strangle me if I blew all of the accumulated dirt out into the house!  I have been told to never use a vacuum cleaner because sometimes they can cause static electricity.

 

Good idea.  In addition to not using a vacuum cleaner, it's much better to use canned compressed air ... which is dried and static-free ... then to use a typical workshop air compressor, which will likely be more humid air which can cause also cause static electricity issues.

 

Good idea.  In addition to not using a vacuum cleaner, it's much better to use canned compressed air ... which is dried and static-free ... then to use a typical workshop air compressor, which will likely be more humid air which can cause also cause static electricity issues.

If your workshop air can be used to successfully paint cars, it can be used to clean electronics. If you point the air nozzle at the concrete floor and it creates a bloom of water drops, not so much.

Good idea.  In addition to not using a vacuum cleaner, it's much better to use canned compressed air ... which is dried and static-free ... then to use a typical workshop air compressor, which will likely be more humid air which can cause also cause static electricity issues.

If your workshop air can be used to successfully paint cars, it can be used to clean electronics. If you point the air nozzle at the concrete floor and it creates a bloom of water drops, not so much.

 

OR oil drops!!!  (Our factory air had oilers in the lines to lubricate air powered tools. Plus, some compressors are not oil-less.)

Good idea.  In addition to not using a vacuum cleaner, it's much better to use canned compressed air ... which is dried and static-free ... then to use a typical workshop air compressor, which will likely be more humid air which can cause also cause static electricity issues.

If your workshop air can be used to successfully paint cars, it can be used to clean electronics. If you point the air nozzle at the concrete floor and it creates a bloom of water drops, not so much.

 

OR oil drops!!!  (Our factory air had oilers in the lines to lubricate air powered tools. Plus, some compressors are not oil-less.)

What nobody does this anymore?

 

Good idea.  In addition to not using a vacuum cleaner, it's much better to use canned compressed air ... which is dried and static-free ... then to use a typical workshop air compressor, which will likely be more humid air which can cause also cause static electricity issues.

If your workshop air can be used to successfully paint cars, it can be used to clean electronics. If you point the air nozzle at the concrete floor and it creates a bloom of water drops, not so much.

 

OR oil drops!!!  (Our factory air had oilers in the lines to lubricate air powered tools. Plus, some compressors are not oil-less.)

What nobody does this anymore?

 

 

Would you really toss your cell phone into the toilet, leave it for twenty minutes and expect it to work?     

Good idea.  In addition to not using a vacuum cleaner, it's much better to use canned compressed air ... which is dried and static-free ... then to use a typical workshop air compressor, which will likely be more humid air which can cause also cause static electricity issues.

If your workshop air can be used to successfully paint cars, it can be used to clean electronics. If you point the air nozzle at the concrete floor and it creates a bloom of water drops, not so much.

 

OR oil drops!!!  (Our factory air had oilers in the lines to lubricate air powered tools. Plus, some compressors are not oil-less.)

What nobody does this anymore?

 

 

Would you really toss your cell phone into the toilet, leave it for twenty minutes and expect it to work?     

Mineral oil... Non conductive, interesting conversation piece, and better than water cooling...  Messy as hell though

 

Would you really toss your cell phone into the toilet, leave it for twenty minutes and expect it to work?     

Several years ago I managed to put 2 flip phones thru the washer and continued to use them for many months after. The key is to remove the battery and open them up to let them dry for a while. It did crack the little screen on one of them. Haven't tried it with my last 2 smart phones.

Several years ago I managed to put 2 flip phones thru the washer and continued to use them for many months after. The key is to remove the battery and open them up to let them dry for a while. It did crack the little screen on one of them. Haven't tried it with my last 2 smart phones.

 

It's best to rinse with distilled water to remove any chemicals which will cause problems down the line.

 

You could also use air from a SCUBA tank if you have one handy, no oil, clean and dry provided it hasn't been sitting for a long time.

Wow! Sorry for not being more active in this thread. I assumed I was automatically subscribed, but it turns out I had to do that manually. I assumed no one had a response to my issue.

 

Well, I'm back now that my system is having the same issues again. To answer a previous poster, yes, I am using Plex. And as I mentioned before, I am using a cache drive as well, and the tv show and movie shares are allowed to use it. So now I am wondering, is it possible for Plex and the cache drive to not play well together? I can't imagine I'm the only one using these two things. I know the cache drive tends to move items in the early morning, and someone mentioned that Plex does some things in the morning as well. (I adjusted the Plex schedule so it shouldn't overlap with cache mover anymore. Maybe that will fix things.)

UPDATE

 

So, I came home this morning and my server was off. Not just powered down, but the switch on the back was flipped. Apparently one of my family members turned it off last night since it was giving out single, intermittent beeps (from the speaker it seems) every 30 sec or so. Does anyone know what could cause that?

 

And then, after powering it on, an odd squeaking noise was coming from my server (not from the internal speaker), and suddenly the web interface indicated that disk 5 of 7 is not working (red X) and is being emulated. So I guess this disk is dead...

 

Now what I'm wondering is, is it possible that this issue and the previous issue are related? Can an failing disk cause issues during a parity check? This disk likely wasn't being used to write new data, since it's been fairly full for a while, but I assume it would of course be accessed during a parity check. (And I assume it would also be used on occasion when streaming media from it, but the freezing issue only occurred overnight.) I don't see how that can easily be related, but it seems like a big coincidence that they both occurred together, especially since I've never had a failed drive or freezing issues before. I did recently have a PCI SATA expansion card fail on me, but I replaced that a couple months ago.

 

So I guess I'll get a new disk to replace it, and take it from there.

I took out disks 5 (dead) and 4 (OK) and plugged them into my desktop for comparison. I feel like I've done this before, and working disks show their file systems to Windows and let you explore them. Both of these came up as OK in Windows, but with a primary partition that was entirely empty. So I don't know what to make of that. I plugged them both back into the server and they show up as 5 dead and 4 OK.

 

Although, now that I think about it, I don't know if the server actually thinks 5 is dead. It knows it's there, so I think it may have disabled the disk for another reason. I've attached the SMART report for disk5. Can someone assure me if it is OK or dead? Disks 5,6, and 7 are on the new PCI SATA expansion card that I replaced. I remember before, disk7 did not show up when rebooting from one of the freezing episodes, but when I rebooted the system again (after a proper shutdown) it was recognized and has worked since. I think that card just doesn't like improper shutdowns, and maybe unraid has marked disk5 as BAD even though it's ok.

WDC_WD20EARX-00PASB0_WD-WCAZAJ896221-20160515-2343.txt

SMART looks OK. "Dead" and "bad" are not very useful descriptions most of the time. You should describe exactly what you see on the screen or post a screenshot.

 

A disabled disk will have a red X next to it. unRAID disables a disk when a write to it fails. This is because the data on the disk is no longer valid (in sync with parity) and should be rebuilt. More often than not the write failure is due to something other than an actual disk failure, such as a bad connection to the disk.

 

unRAID will not use a disabled disk, since its contents are no longer valid, until it is rebuilt - recommended - or you set a New Config and rebuild parity - not appropriate unless you know why you would do this or it is recommended by someone else who knows why you would do this.

 

As for putting them in Windows to check them, Windows cannot read any of the filesystems used by unRAID unless you install special software or drivers. Best to not mess with this unless you know what you are doing since any changes Windows might make to the disk would make it out of sync with parity even if it didn't actually break anything.

 

 

Hello again, forum goers.

 

I'm adding to this thread again for two reasons. First, to update the status of the main issue (freezing), and second, to report a new disk issue.  :'(

 

So I think that the issue of unraid maxing out the cpu and being unresponsive has been completely fixed by fixing the clash between Plex's nighttime actions and unraid's cache mover. I changed the Plex's scheduled tasks to run between 1am and 3am, which avoids the mover's standard activity window.

 

But now for the new issue. I previously had disk 5 become disabled, and I don't think I ever figured out why that was, but I submitted the SMART report to this thread, had it looked over, and was reassured that the disk seemed to be OK. So I cleared and rebuilt it, and things were running ok for quite a while. Then, a couple days ago as the vacuum was running, the circuit breaker flipped for our living room and cut the power to my server. Fortunately, nothing was being moved to it at the time. I turned it on and got green circles all the way down, so everything seemed fine. But today I attempted to access my music share for the first time since the power incident and it appeared totally empty (I added it and disk 6 at the same time, so all of it is likely on disk 6). I noticed that disk 6 now has a red X, and is supposedly being emulated. After a couple of attempts to access the music share again, the contents did eventually appear (presumably via emulation).

 

I have attached the SMART report for disk 6 and I was hoping to have someone determine if the disk is actually functional, or if it needs replacing. Also, I am wondering if it it possible for what is occurring with disk 6 to have come from the unclean power down. I don't like to be rebuilding disks every month, so if there is a bigger problem at hand, I would like to figure it out

 

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for reading. Getting my server to a stable place like it used to be would be great, and I appreciate all the advice to help get it there.

WDC_WD20EARX-00PASB0_WD-WCAZAF678954-20160625-0033.txt

Ok, here is one red flag that I see:

 

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       33

 

This error is usually caused by a cabling issue (most probable) or disk controller (least likely).  Are you using locking SATA cables?  The reason I pointed this out is that WD changed their design on the data connectors on their drives some time ago and the locking cables no longer provide secure electrical connection between the drive and the SATA cable.  (If you want to know more about what these codes mean, look up SMART on WIKIpedia.) 

 

I would also recommend that you get a UPS for your server. 

 

I would just rebuilt the disk again. If it happens again, I would suggest that you run about three preclear cycles on the disk to see if that uncovers some problem with the disk.  (If you are the more paranoid type, you could do it now before the rebuilt.)

Thanks, Frank. Very helpful post. I changed the SATA cable (seemed to be connected well on HDD side, but was a little wiggly on SATA card side) and I am currently rebuilding the disk. I will definitely look into a UPS in the future when I can fit it within budget.

 

I think all my issues are as solved as they can be (the main issue of unraid freezing is gone), so I think this thread has run its course. Big thanks again to all who posted!

Thanks, Frank. Very helpful post. I changed the SATA cable (seemed to be connected well on HDD side, but was a little wiggly on SATA card side) and I am currently rebuilding the disk. I will definitely look into a UPS in the future when I can fit it within budget.

 

I think all my issues are as solved as they can be (the main issue of unraid freezing is gone), so I think this thread has run its course. Big thanks again to all who posted!

 

Keep an eye on that parameter in the SMART report.  If it increases, you still have some problem somewhere...  (After you think you have fixed something, most SMART stats are not reset so you have know what the old value was to verify that you solved the problem.)