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Scanner Causes Server Instability?


tdoane

Question

, I believe I've isolated my issue of server lockups being caused by the Scanner software. The situation I have is a two week old new Server 2012 Essential build, that is migrating from a 35 TB WHS v1 box. During the course of setup I installed both the drive pool software (love it btw) and the scanner software. Every hour to two hours the machine would drop all shares, RDS would become unresponsive, and the box became unreachable over the network by both tracert's and pings. Subsequent removal of the scanner software eliminated the issue that I just described which occurred a half dozen times prior to removal. After migrating the vast majority of the data, I reinstalled the scanner software last night - I was hoping it was being caused by software updates by our MSFT friends, however once again within two hours the machine became unresponsive. Is there any recommendations, debugging that I can do to determine what aspect of the program is causing this behavior? Thanks!

 

-Tim

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Tim,

 

It is definitely possible. Are you using UnsafeDirectIo on the system? If you're not sure, then you're definitely not.

 

And what hardware are you using (motherboard, controller cards, USB enclosures, etc)?

 

 

As for troubleshooting.... there is only one component that would really do this, and that is the background service.

However, you can disable SMART querying per disk. This may help.

 

 

Also, could you duplicate the issue again?

And get a crash dump when this happens?

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_System_Freeze

 

Note: this will cause a BSOD (intential) and the dump may be VERY large. Use the Box.com upload widget on the linked page to upload it to us. Include a link here, or a description of the issue.

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Drashna --

 

I'll create the dump file as soon as I finish the server migration from WHS to SE2012. I'll need to do some hardware mounting in the rack regardless and within a hour the lock up will occur. In regards to components:

 

- Norco 4220 case

ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16 SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1600/1333/1066

- 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2630 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP 2.6GHz LGA 2011 80W Six-Core Server Processor BX80635E52630V2

- 4 x Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory w/TS Model KVR16E11/8

- 1x 1 x ADATA Premier Pro SP900 ASP900S3-256GM-C 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (server o/s drive)

- 5x 4TB red WD, 4x 2 TB green 1x 1 1.5 TB green (more to be added as old server removed)

 

 

Please let me know if you want any additional details outside the memory dump. Thanks for your response -- hoping to get this working soon!

 

-Tim

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And no other controllers yet, right?

 

But for this sort of issue, about the only thing that is really helpful is that crash dump. 

And the hardware lists what chipsets it is using, which is helpful.

 

Also, is anything plugged into that "additional" 4 port SATA controller? The Marvell chipset one?

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Hi, im just posting here because I think i might be experiencing a similar issue. I am on Win 7 64bit, when the scanner service is running i am experiencing intermittent 'lock ups' lasting about a third of a second. The mouse stops moving and any audio turns into buzzing. 

 

I am using the 4 port Sata Pci express card with Marvell Chipset, same one?:

Edit, Sorry very slightly different model from posted link, 2 eSata ports not one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-eSATA-Express-Controller-Adapter/dp/B0010VDI0M

 

It has 4 drives plugged in. I am also experiencing problems with the card not returning correct HDD serial numbers, i get either '?', a jumbled serial no. (which is still interpretable or something that looks like its encoded like 45620202002002 etc). I appreciate this is probably an issue with the card rather than the scanner itself.

 

Is the locking up probably the card? Id like to avoid changing it since it was expensive and resolved problems I was having with other sata extension cards.

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Urgh, im really sorry!

 

I installed the wrong driver:

 

http://uk.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/4-Port-PCI-Express-SATA-III-6Gbps-Controller-Card-with-eSATA-PCIe-4-Line~PEXSAT34

 

Instead of similar:

 

http://uk.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/2-Port-eSATA-4-Port-SATA-PCI-Express-x4-SATA-Controller-Adapter-Card-PCIe~PEXSATA24E

 

Now its working fine, hope i didn't waste anyone's time. Still got issue with serial numbers coming from the card but minor issue obviously.

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Well, that would totally do it!

 

Though, I'm glad it was a simple fix. And don't worry, stuff like this happens. 

 

As for the serial number, grab the "DirectIO Test" from here: 

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/36-how-to-contribute-test-data/

 

Just select a drive from the drop down (let it do everything else normally). You can click on "Identify" to verify the model and serial number. If it is mangled still, check the "NoWmi" option. If that comes up clean, enable the "Smart_NoWmi" option in the advance settings for StableBit Scanner (http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_Scanner_Advanced_Settings)

If that doesn't work, uncheck it, and check the "UnsafeDirectIo" and see if that works.

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Unfortunately the controller is returning the same serial for all four disks, not mangled ever now though. They are all the infamous Samsung HD204UI, but with updated firmware. Btw I noticed this problem before I installed Drivepool, Seagate's drivedetect.exe was doing the same thing. They are responsible for samsung HDD's i think they bought the HDD company.

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If all the disks are reporting the same serial number.... try swapping the disk on port 0 (or 1, whichever is the first port on the card) and see if it changes the serial number. I'm willing to bet it will, and change it for all of them.

If it does, then I don't think there is anything we can do. This would be a bug with the controller's firmware. Some of the Silicon Image based cards exhibit this behavior as well (your uses Marvell, I checked). 

Though, try installing StableBit Scanner 2.5 and see if that helps (there is a work around for the similar bug for the Sil firmware that may work for you as well).

 

Regards

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I tried installing 2,5 unfortunately no change with the serial numbers, sorry not had a chance to switch disk 0 around yet. Lol it seems unless you spend at least £100 on a sata expansion card theres going to be at least one fault somewhere. To be honest now I have the correct driver installed the locking up / freezing is still occurring, but to a much less noticeable extent, the mouse doesn't stop moving anymore but flash content or any system audio will freeze about 0.1s every minute (especially noticeable in YouTube videos) or watching any media. Ive tried disabling Smart requests for the drives running off the card but no change there either. 

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Yeah, I agree with the spending money on cards.... unfortunately.

 

However, if you are inclined to do so, some of the higher end HighPoint cards are a good buy, and work well.

 

But it definitely does sound like the issue may be the controller here. And if it's using the proper drivers and still doing this.... it could be possible that there is a hardware defect.

If possible, see about disconnecting ALL the disks. If the issue persists, remove the controller. If it still persists... run a memory test.

If removing the card clears up the issue, you have a defective card (or a defective card slot). 

If removing the disks helps... then slowly add them back until the issue reappears. It could be an issue with one of the disks.

 

And yes, I believe that Seagate acquired Samsumg's drive division. Much the way that WD acquired HGST.



Also, if you're able to, force a crash dump when the system is acting up. We may be able to see what is going on.

 

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_System_Freeze

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