Hello All,

Last night I connected to my server to do a Plex Server Update.  When I connected, the top header was white vs. my personalized header and the only warning was showing drive space on one of my drives running at 97% (2T free overall)... all other notifications were green (pass).  Something was funky and coming from a Microsoft State of Mind (when in doubt, reboot)... I restarted the server.  Now it boots up sitting at 'SYSLINUX 6.03 EDD 2014-10-06 Copyright... ' (pic attached) and I cannot access from my other computers.

I wanted to check with the forum before I did 'anything'.  Any help regarding next steps would be greatly appreciated.  Hopefully just my USB key is having an issue and everything else is ok.  It is a Samsung 64gig USB3 (MUF-64BB/AM) and this server has been running happily for a year.

Scary thing... the motherboard for this server, was ordered on Oct 31, 2019... 'exactly' 1 year from today... Halloween...  SpOOky !! 

Server is running 6.8.3 and nothing has been done since adding an additional drive a couple months ago.

Happy to send any additional info or specs needed to troubleshoot.

Thanks!! 

G33K

 

Unraid 6.8.3

NAS/Plex Server- Name 'BORG'  (Fractal Design 804 MicroATX Cube Case)

GIGABYTE C246M-WU4

Intel Xeon E-2174G

32Gig Crucial ECC CT16G4WFD8266

Samsung 64gig USB3 (MUF-64BB/AM) (Boot Drive)

2 - Samsung 960 Pro 512G m.2 PCIe SSD (Mirrored Cache Drives)

1 - WD 6T RED PRO (Parity Drive)

5 - WD Red 6T 

 

 

Try redoing the flash drive, backup the config folder, re-do it using the USB tool, restore the config folder.

That was the issue.  Yesterday I assumed it might be a bad flash drive and booted from an 'old' usb flash I had lying around and it booted up... only to find I did not have a USB Flash backup made 'after' I bought and installed my key 

So, I ordered a new USB flash from Amazon, which came today (next day on a Sunday... thanks Amazon ) .  Created the drive and everything booted up... YAY... although, registering my Key using the link I had on file, did not appear to work.  Then I took a look at the Old USB drive and the data on it was accessible.  I copied it over to the new drive and it booted up with all my drives setup happilly like nothing ever happend... BUT and it is a big BUT... It is telling me my key is Invalid.  What a PITA!!  So, even though I have the key file from the failed USB Flash Drive and the original link from my purchase, it is still forcing me to 'Replace Key'... Am I doing something wrong??? 

This is SO frustrating.  

Pro.Key file on my USB Flash drive is dated 11-15-2019 and is the correct key.  The Registered GUID showing in the Unraid Registration 'is' the one on my initial invoice.  So... WHY is the Flash Drive GUID showing something different and it is telling me it is invalid???  

 

The GUID is a hardware feature of a particular flash drive so a licence is tied to the flash drive for which was issued.   Any time you change the USB drive you need a new key file that matches the GUID of that new drive.     Limetech allows for an automated transfer of a licence to a new drive once a year (which then blacklists the old drive).    If you need a transfer before then you need to contact the Limetech via email.

Did the key request and now I'm back up and running.  1st thing I did was a new Flash Backup!!  I also purchased an extra USB flash drive in case this happens again.

What a silly idea, IMO, to use such unreliable media to store the boot OS and licensing key.  Is it possible to configure a mirrored USB Flash drive for redundancy?  We have parity drives and can mirror cache drives... 6.9 will have multiple pools...  where is our redundancy for Boot OS?  Maybe a plugin?

Thanks you all for your assistance!!

1 hour ago, PsychoG33k said:

where is our redundancy for Boot OS?  Maybe a plugin?

Make a new backup whenever you make any important changes in the webUI. Go to Main - Boot Device - Flash - Flash Backup to download a zipped backup of flash. The CA Backup plugin will also let you schedule backup of appdata, libvirt, and flash.

 

The OS doesn't actually run from the flash drive. The flash drive just contains the archives of the OS. These archives don't change except for upgrades, and are unpacked fresh at each boot into RAM. The OS runs completely in RAM. Settings you make in the webUI are stored on flash so they can be reapplied at boot.

 

Think of it as firmware except easier to work with and unbrickable.