I have been using unraid for years and its always been very stable for me.  about a week ago I updated to the latest version of unraid (6.3.1) and since then I have had three seperate occasions where my server just became unresponsive.  I was unable to connect to it through a browser or telnet.  each time that happened, i connected a monitor and found that it was saying "kernel panic" on the screen.  I reboot the server and it comes back up and is fine.

 

I just happened a few minutes ago and I have included a system log from right after it came back up.

 

can anyone provide any insight on what is going on and how to get my server to be stable again?

storagetower-syslog-20170213-1558.zip

I have been using unraid for years and its always been very stable for me.  about a week ago I updated to the latest version of unraid (6.3.1) and since then I have had three seperate occasions where my server just became unresponsive.  I was unable to connect to it through a browser or telnet.  each time that happened, i connected a monitor and found that it was saying "kernel panic" on the screen.  I reboot the server and it comes back up and is fine.

 

I just happened a few minutes ago and I have included a system log from right after it came back up.

 

can anyone provide any insight on what is going on and how to get my server to be stable again?

Unfortunately, logs after a boot aren't much use as they are clean.

 

If this is happening often, install Fix Common Problems, put it into troubleshooting and wait for the crash and then upload the resulting files here.

 

Also take a picture with your phone of the screen after the crash and upload it.

thanks for the info... I will make sure to take a picture of the screen next time it happens.  I am not sure I know what you mean by "install Fix Common Problems, put it into troubleshooting"

It's a useful plugin and it has a special troubleshooting mode that writes logging information to your boot flash so that in the event of a crash there's a chance that some useful information will be saved that might give a clue as to what happened. See here: https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=48972.0

unfortunately I haven't had the time top install the plugin yet, but my server did crash again this afternoon and I took a photo of the screen before rebooting.  see attched.  any chance this helps give an ide of what is happening?  (sorry i'm not sure what the image is showing upside down after uploading)

While I can't say for certain that it's the networking, it does look like a prime suspect, something to do with the Realtek NIC.  Try a different NIC.  If you don't have one, by far the most recommended is to add an Intel gigabit NIC.

Ok I will definitely give that a shot.  Weird that the Nic would die like that after years of service. I did recently connect my UPS to a USB port. Any chance that could be the cause?

Ok I will definitely give that a shot.  Weird that the Nic would die like that after years of service. I did recently connect my UPS to a USB port. Any chance that could be the cause?

 

Probably not.  But by far, the most replaced NIC is onboard Realteks.  They have failed for many users.

Ok cool.  Any advice on where to get an intel gigabit Nic?

Amazon, ebay... the usual. What country are you in? Newegg if U.S.A. Novatech or Scan if U.K.

I'm the us.  Anything special I should be looking for or just any intel Nic?  Been a while since I bought one. For reference I have an old lime tech md1100 server.

This one should do nicely and won't break the bank.

 

thanks!  I just got it installed and powered up with the network cable plugged into the new NIC instead of the old on board nic and i coudl not hit the web gui.  is there somethgin I have to do to tell unraid to use the new nic?

after plugging the cable back into the old NIC, i can go to settings, network settings and it sees the new NIC as eth 1.  I am just not sure hot to tell it to use it.

Scroll right to the bottom and swap over eth0 and eth1 via their MAC addresses.

ahh - gotcha - thanks!!

so unfortunately it looks liek the issue was not with the NIC.  I got the new NIC all installed and workign and abotu an hour later the system crashed again

You need to do what Squid said, then. Run FCP in troubleshooting mode and post diagnostics when the problem happens again.

I just got FCP installed and ran a scan which didn't find anything major.  I will put it into troubleshooting mode.  It seems like the crash has been happening aver few days to a week.  since its that long between crashes, is it going to hurt anything to have troubleshooting mode running for that long?

No. It just makes lots of entries in the log. Since crashes are random it's going to be difficult to predict when to start the troubleshooting so best to leave it running. It stops when you reboot.

ok great thanks.  is there any reason that enabling troubleshooting mode would do anything to my user shares?  I just went to the shares tab and its telling me I have no exportable user or disk shares.

No. I really don't think so. I haven't heard of it having any side effects like that. Post your diagnostics and someone will take a look.

I tried to reboot just to see if the issue would fix itself, and now I just cant hit the web gui.  unfortunately I am not right in front of the server right now so I cant see the monitor.  ugh.

when I get home tonight I will post some diagnostics.  Exactly what diagnostic info do i need to post so that you will have all the info you need to troubleshoot?

 

If you can get to the GUI then Tools -> Diagnostics and post the zip file. If you can only get to a console prompt then log in as root and type 

diagnostics

and post the diagnostics file in the logs folder of your boot USB device. Either way try to get the diagnostics before you reboot, otherwise the useful information is lost. Problems rarely if ever "fix themselves".

ok i will give that a try once I am home and in front of the server.  thanks!!

So my server just crashed again and unfortunately I cannot access it from the GUI or from a console prompt.  

I have attache the most recent zip file from troubleshooting mode here though.  hopefully that can provide some insights as to what is causing the crashes.  any help would be appreciated!

 

storagetower-diagnostics-20170221-2256.zip