Hi dear unraid community,

 

I encountered this issue yesterday. After I carelessly kicked the power plug off my old lose wall plug and caused a power outtage on my machine, my unraid WebUI became inaccessible. Below is what I observed after the accident.

 

1. After I re-plugged the machine back onto a tighter wall-plug, I started it, but the motherboard BIOS told me that no bootable media was found.
2. I powered off the machine, unplugged the USB flash drive with unraid, and replugged it back. This time, the boot media is shown.
3. I chose the first option in the boot menu to run unraid headlessly. I though it booted  without issues, but after i logged in with the command line, the following error message popped up, and I found the webUI inaccessible.

   Warning: file_put_contents(/boot/config/docker.cfg): failed to open stream: Input/output error in /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/dynamix.docker.manager/scripts/dockerconfig.php on line 35
   
   Warning: file_put_contents(/boot/config/domain.cfg): failed to open stream: Input/output error in /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/dynamix.vm.manager/scripts/libvirtconfig.php on line 39

    

4. I rebooted again, the flash drive was missing again, so I had to re-insert it again. This time I booted into the second boot option (with GUI), and the same issue appeared inside the GUI telling me that the webUI is not accessible.

5. I then rebooted once more, with safe mode (had to re-inserted the flash drive on every reboot or two). Now the webUI is accessible (without plugins according to boot option description).

 

I am not very professional on these errors, but I believe that they are configuration files of Docker and VM. I guess it was either the power outtage corrupted the files when they where being written something to, or the USB drive was physically damaged partially with some data became unavailable.

 

I started my unraid server for home-use purposes roughly a week ago, so I was using a trial key with some not-very-reliable-looking flash drive. The machine is one of my old desktops with E3-1230v2 and 16GB RAM. I was prepared to purchase a formal key before the accident happened.

 

There is nothing important on my unraid server (personal files still have backups on my workstation), so a fresh re-install of the whole unraid OS on a decent new drive would be an option for me. However, if there are any possible ways to fix the issue without wiping out all my existing data and configurations, any suggestion is welcomed!

 

Thank you!

Put Flash in PC and let it checkdisk. While there make a backup of config folder. Try again, be sure to use USB2 port for booting. If it still has problems prepare Flash as new install and restart your config from backup. 

2 minutes ago, trurl said:

Put Flash in PC and let it checkdisk. While there make a backup of config folder. Try again, be sure to use USB2 port for booting. If it still has problems prepare Flash as new install and restart your config from backup. 

Hi trurl,

 

Thank you for the reply! I just did what you said.

 

Windows chkdsk command told me that it found no problem on the flash drive.

Below is the log.

C:\Users\Cyano>chkdsk h: /f
The type of the file system is FAT32.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process.  Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) Y
Volume dismounted.  All opened handles to this volume are now invalid.
Volume UNRAID created 2017/7/20 8:38
Volume Serial Number is 2732-64F5
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.
   31,251,536 KB total disk space.
          224 KB in 3 hidden files.
          864 KB in 54 folders.
      222,080 KB in 228 files.
   31,028,352 KB are available.

       16,384 bytes in each allocation unit.
    1,953,221 total allocation units on disk.
    1,939,272 allocation units available on disk.

I booted again from the drive on my machine and the same problem happened: I cannot access the WebUI unless in safe mode. Thus, I think a new install of unraid is needed in my case.

 

Should I just get a new flash drive, do a clean new unraid installation, and then copy back the config folder to the new drive? Or is there a more elegant way to recover the config folder?

 

Thank you!

Here is a diagnostics zip that I obtained just now by booting into regular mode (with WebUI failure problem). I hope it will help you figure out what the problem is.

tower-home-diagnostics-20190829-2248.zip

Disk3 has dropped offline, which can't be good for your correcting parity check. Check connections. If SAFE mode is the only way you can work, do that for now until you get your array stable again. Then we can move on to the other problem.

 

Did you make a backup of the config folder as I suggested?

5 hours ago, trurl said:

Disk3 has dropped offline, which can't be good for your correcting parity check. Check connections. If SAFE mode is the only way you can work, do that for now until you get your array stable again. Then we can move on to the other problem.

 

Did you make a backup of the config folder as I suggested?

Hi trurl,

 

I got a new flash drive, did a flash replacement according to the Official Manual, and I am now able to access the WebUI again under regular mode. Thus, I think it was the crappy flash drive that caused the whole issue that the WebUI is inaccessible.

 

Also, it is true that the disk dropped off, and that happened several times. The HDDs I am using right now is nowhere near good as I am still testing out all the functionalities of unraid. They will be replaced with new NAS drives (are already on the way) connected with decent SATA cables (already bought several) when the server is brought to formal operation. 

 

And yes, I did make a back up of the config folder. But since the WebUI issue is fixed, is the folder still necessary? Should I also make regular backups of that folder to prevent unprecedented issues in the future?

14 hours ago, Cyano said:

The HDDs I am using right now is nowhere near good

All the disks look fine to me, except I can't tell anything about disk3 since it wasn't connected when Diagnostics tried to get a SMART report. I expect it is very likely that disk is fine too. Your problem was not about the disks, it was about communicating with the disks. Connection, cable (SATA or power), controller...

9 hours ago, trurl said:

All the disks look fine to me, except I can't tell anything about disk3 since it wasn't connected when Diagnostics tried to get a SMART report. I expect it is very likely that disk is fine too. Your problem was not about the disks, it was about communicating with the disks. Connection, cable (SATA or power), controller...

I replaced the SATA cables several hours ago. Up to now, the system has been running without problem since the replacement, as shown on the WebUI. However, my motherboard is quite old and I do suspect that something might become defected in the future. Should I use an HBA card (or array card) instead of the onboard SATA ports and controller, just in case there is a possibility of defection?