very very weird.

 

New Unraid array - first one for me.  Hardware seems perfectly fine - memtest 26 hrs no errors.  reiserfsck data drive no errors.  smartctl, no errors. no problem gettting to //tower and configuring unraid

 

I can write to the unraid all day long no problem.  But if I try to read files from the unraid, windows hourglasses and "this application is not responding".  Same thing on my macbook except error -51.

 

Have tried reformatting and reinstalling flash.  have tried different flash. have tried 4.5.3, and 4.5.1.  firewalls enabled and disabled.

 

Guess I am left with motherboard/network.  But what the hell kind of hardware error would result in one-way communication only?  It's gotta be software?!

 

syslog attached.

syslog.txt

memtest 26 hrs no errors.

syslog attached.

 

Syslog looks garbled in quite a few places. Are you seeing what I am seeing?...

Mar 21 11:06:26 Tower kernel: initial memory mapped : 0 -?MP'^lðIUJº?E?øŸË@?@??À¨?kÀ¨?d?P½í'¦Æ†à¤×P ‚&??ppi

...Do you see the same garbage in your syslog?  Or did I get the garbage when downloading it?

That's very suspicious.  Run memtest again!

 

memtest 26 hrs no errors.

syslog attached.

 

Syslog looks garbled in quite a few places. Are you seeing what I am seeing?...

Mar 21 11:06:26 Tower kernel: initial memory mapped : 0 -?MP'^lðIUJº?E?øŸË@?@??À¨?kÀ¨?d?P½í'¦Æ†à¤×P ‚&??ppi

...Do you see the same garbage in your syslog?  Or did I get the garbage when downloading it?

That's very suspicious.  Run memtest again!

 

 

It's in a slightly funky format - but nothing as serious as above.

 

Content wise - I see an awful lot of errors around reading your super.dat file...

Memtest was run for over 26 hours with no errors following the initial difficulties.

 

I have no idea where the glitching in the syslog is coming from.

 

time to start throwing parts at it, I guess.

 

start with different ram and replace the motherboard next if the ram makes no difference in the absence of any better suggestions.

 

 

Memtest was run for over 26 hours with no errors following the initial difficulties.

 

I have no idea where the glitching in the syslog is coming from.

 

time to start throwing parts at it, I guess.

 

start with different ram and replace the motherboard next if the ram makes no difference in the absence of any better suggestions.

 

 

 

You have a ton of errors regarding unraid not being able to read your super.dat

 

Why this would cause the problem you're seeing I don't know, but it's clear theres something wrong right there. I wouldn't throw parts or money at it until you resolve that.

 

I can't help you beyond this as I'm not sure what super.dat does beyond holding disk info. But not being able to read it may indicate :

 

- it's corrupted

- your flash disk is ropey

- your installation on the flash disk is corrupted.

...

- your hardware is faulty

 

The weirdness in your file post could come from the same faulty hardware (although memory which you've ruled out would be the obvious culprit) or just a transmission / formatting error depending on how you saved and posted it and how purko and I downloaded and viewed it.

Maybe try a different USB thumbdrive? I too noticed the can't read super.dat a few times in the syslog. Don't know if that means anything.

replaced the ram, made no difference.

 

next, trying 3rd usb key. 

 

after that, getting motherboard and processor replacements.  I am getting more and more suspicious that something is wrong with the processor.

i don't think super.dat means anything - it seems to be par for the course to be throwing an error at it on many of the syslogs here.  If you have a fresh flash, I think you will throw an error everytime because super.dat holds the disk info and it will have none/not exist in a fresh install.

 

also, //tower has no problems at all representing up to date status of all drives connnected and active/inactive which argues for no problems storing and accessing drive info.

 

I think the smoking gun is the syslog garbage - I think it is part of the generated syslog because I always see the same thing whether I access with word, wordpad, notepad or textpad and whether I access via browser and open with app or save to file.

 

 

3rd usb key, no diff.  garbage in syslog in exact same places.

 

flash bios on motherboard now.

 

3rd usb key, no diff.  garbage in syslog in exact same places.

 

flash bios on motherboard now.

 

I would usually suspect bad RAM, but you've apparently tested that pretty well. 

The garbage in the syslog is not normal at all.  as you said, it could be the CPU, or the MB itself.

flashing the motherboard made no difference at all.

 

guess I have to go get replacements and play doctor.

 

 

Hi there, what CPU are you running? Is it over heating? is it over clocked? it is rare for the CPU to fail, I'd put my money on the mobo being the problem. i'd swap the mobo before thinking about the CPU. then again, rare things can happen too and it could be the CPU.

e5300 2.6ghz - not overclocked not overheating.

 

just changed the motherboard aaaaaaaannnnnndddd.... made no difference at all.

 

mf'ing processor must be bad.

 

this thing is getting shutdown and pushed into a corner for a couple of weeks.  if I do anything more with it right now I'll throw it out a window.

 

 

i don't think super.dat means anything - it seems to be par for the course to be throwing an error at it on many of the syslogs here.  If you have a fresh flash, I think you will throw an error everytime because super.dat holds the disk info and it will have none/not exist in a fresh install.

 

But you said you've configured unraid? and assigned disks to slots etc? That should generate the super.dat? (someone else may have to chip in here at the point at which it's made).

 

I have no super.dat errors under 4.5

 

Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree but it's another thing to level at your flash disk.

 

Have you tried another / all usb ports?

this thing is getting shutdown and pushed into a corner for a couple of weeks. 

if I do anything more with it right now I'll throw it out a window.

Was that the third window from the left?  I'll be right there!

 

OK, a faulty CPU. I've seem more faulty mobo's, RAM than I've seen CPUs from memory. I can only recall coming across one, maybe two faulty CPUs. If this was my case, I'd just buy a new mobo and CPU in one hit, go for an AMD, you'll get a good combo for under $200 ($180USD for sure), value for money (unless your an Intel fan, get an Intel kit). If you go down this path, make note of the disk assignments of your unraid server webgui site, print/screen shot the disks page, remove the mobo/cpu, replace with new and install the disks in the correct order, it should come up good again. Good Luck.

well, guess what.  I just pulled the cpu from my other comp, put it in, and the exact same problems continue, so now, it ain't the cpu.

 

so far I have:

 

-3 different flash drives

-swapped motherboard

-swapped ram

-swapped cpu

 

guess I should toss the hard drives and try other ones.

 

I am at a loss here now.

 

 

so far I have:

 

-3 different flash drives

-swapped motherboard

-swapped ram

-swapped cpu

 

What the heck??  There's nothing else left!

Are you by any chance located inside a nuclear reactor?  You must be having some radiation leak!

 

Hey, get a multimeter and measure the voltages on the PSU!

 

Are you using backplanes / drive cages?  Did you swap out the drive cables?

Network card on Server?

Router?

Network card on PC you are copying from?

 

They are also possibilities.

I'm just throwing this one out there, but could a electromagnetic interruption be the cause of this problem? Networking and Power Supply side of things could be at fault too and I would definitely look into these possibilities as well, but do you have this server near an appliance like a radio transmitter of any kind, HiFi stereo speakers, stuff like that? I'd suggest place the server in a different location in your place, on a different power circuit that it is currently running off, try a power board with a filter, if your currently using one, remove it and try without it. Very quirky indeed.

 

UPDATE:

 

all right, I took another stab at it.

 

Took a flash disk, set it up at work, tried it in a old computer at work being retired.  Booted into unraid, absolutely raced through bzroot etc. and fired right up.  //tower/log/syslog showed perfectly clear log with no garbles and no error/warnings other than super.dat.

 

So it would seem flash is fine.  Also took same flash and tried in home computer.  Home computer is gigabyte motherboard like new fileserver and the home comp took much longer than the old work computer to boot and run through bzroot/bzimage.  However it did run and boot successfully and once again //tower/log/syslog looks absolutely fine.

 

Take flash and stick it into fileserver - boots, slow getting past bzroot/bzimage, similar to home comp, but once it is running, //tower/log/syslog shows same corruption/garbling as before.  This is with same flash drive that works fine on two other computers and this is identical with all drives unplugged as well.

 

Conclusion I have reached at this point is that the gigabyte G31M-ES2L rev.2 motherboard is incompatible with Unraid.  I am aware that others have had success with these - all I can say is that I have gotten identical results with two of these motherboards, and it is my belief that something must have changed and the boards that others have had success with must have been rev.1 versions.

 

Next step is to get a completely different motherboard, probably not a gigabyte motherboard, either.

 

Not sure what the hell I'm gonna do with the two g31s I now have sitting around either.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:

 

picked up an Asus P5QVL-VM DO motherboard and put it into the machine without changing anything else.  Booted, changed bios settings to config for usb boot, and fired it into unraid.  Booted into bzimage/bzroot faster than the previous board, and booted successfully.  Log is clean - no garble, no errors or warnings other than super.dat.

 

Am now running parity-sync which is running at about 60k.  Have successfully played video files off the server, which I was unable to do before.  It would appear that I am a going concern now.

 

Conclusion:  Don't buy Gigabyte G31M-ES2L rev.2.  It is incompatible with unraid.  If at all possible, it would be good if a note could be added to the hardware compatibility chart (which states the G31M-ES2L works fine), unless others chime in that they have a rev.2 and it works in which case I guess I got two bad motherboards in a row.

Am now running parity-sync which is running at about 60k - I hope you mean 60 MB/s or more? Good to hear that you sorted your issue, the mobo was causing you the hassle.

 

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:

 

picked up an Asus P5QVL-VM DO motherboard and put it into the machine without changing anything else.  Booted, changed bios settings to config for usb boot, and fired it into unraid.  Booted into bzimage/bzroot faster than the previous board, and booted successfully.  Log is clean - no garble, no errors or warnings other than super.dat.

 

Am now running parity-sync which is running at about 60k.  Have successfully played video files off the server, which I was unable to do before.  It would appear that I am a going concern now.

 

Conclusion:  Don't buy Gigabyte G31M-ES2L rev.2.  It is incompatible with unraid.  If at all possible, it would be good if a note could be added to the hardware compatibility chart (which states the G31M-ES2L works fine), unless others chime in that they have a rev.2 and it works in which case I guess I got two bad motherboards in a row.

Conclusion:  Don't buy Gigabyte G31M-ES2L rev.2.  It is incompatible with unraid.  If at all possible, it would be good if a note could be added to the hardware compatibility chart (which states the G31M-ES2L works fine), unless others chime in that they have a rev.2 and it works in which case I guess I got two bad motherboards in a row.

I'd rephrase that:  Don't buy Gigabyte.  Period.  They've caused too much grief to this community.  (just do a search on HPA)

 

I am glad to hear you sorted it out!