[SOLVED] Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 - Array wont start

Hi All,

Hoping for some help. I'm running 5.0 RC12a. The box has been running well for a couple of months but I needed more drives so chose the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8. I have a 3TB WD RED drive on it currently (my parity is also the 3TB WD RED). The drives on the controller card will all be simple data drives - cache and parity are on the MB SATA controller.

The card was detected fine and I was able to access the bios (.21) via CTRL+M. I disabled INT13 as per the thread on this forum. No other settings we changed. Exited and unraid booted perfectly. For this reason I have not downgraded the card firmware to .15, as that has only even been posted as a fix for unraid boot failures after installing the card.

The new drive is visible and selectable under the unraid gui (shows as WDC_WD30EFRX-68AX9N0_WD-WCC1T0499411 (sdh) 2930266584). I assign that drive to the array, check the 'I want to do this' box and click START to start array however the page just refreshes immediately and nothing happens. The array doesnt start and no other changes occur. I expected to be able to format at that point.

If I unassign the drive and click start the array starts perfectly as normal.

The syslog is attached - I think these lines show something but Im not sure what. From reading the preclear.sh thread it seems like you still need to be able to start the array to use the utility to preclear a disk.

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: Spinning up all drives...

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: shcmd (38): /usr/sbin/hdparm -S0 /dev/sdf &> /dev/null

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower kernel: mdcmd (34): spinup 0

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower kernel: mdcmd (35): spinup 1

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower kernel: mdcmd (36): spinup 2

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower kernel: mdcmd (37): spinup 3

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower kernel: mdcmd (38): spinup 4

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower kernel: mdcmd (39): spinup 5

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: new disk(s) are not cleared

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: shcmd (39): :>/etc/samba/smb-shares.conf

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: Restart SMB...

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: shcmd (40): killall -HUP smbd

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: shcmd (41): ps axc | grep -q rpc.mountd

Apr 21 11:45:17 Tower emhttp: _shcmd: shcmd (41): exit status: 1

Does anyone have any suggestions? Apologies if I have missed anything.

syslog.txt

A couple of thoughts ...

(1)  You do have to boot UnRAID, but you don't have to start the array to run PreClear.

(2)  You DO have to start the array to add the drive, once it's been cleared.  I'd expect to be able to start the array even without the drive being cleared -- and then UnRAID should clear it at that point.    So even though you can PreClear the drive okay, something still doesn't seem right.    Hopefully one of the Linux gurus (Joe L ??) will chime in shortly and suggest what else you could do.

(3)  I vaguely remember reading something about an issue with the MV8's in one of the RCs.  Not sure which one;  but it would certainly not hurt to update to RC12a before doing anything else.

Thanks for the ideas - I agree that I shouldn't have to do the pre-clear via the utility for this to work.

I will hold off upgrading just for the time being to see if anyone can see anything in the logs that reveals the issue.

I upgraded but the result is identical.

If you add a new data drive to the array that has not been previously pre-cleared then you have to wait while unRAID does it which can take many hours (or even days) for modern large drives.  You will not be given the chance to format the drive until this pre-clear phase finishes.

This is why most people do the pre-clear before adding the drive to the array as it means the drive is ready to be formatted within seconds of adding it to the array.  Also the pre-clear script does a better stress test of the drive to help with picking up early-life drive failures.  Note that the pre-clear script will only let you run it against drives that are NOT part of the array to avoid accidents.

Thanks. It definitely sounds worth doing when adding drives. What is the behaviour of the system during this time? In the gui (simplefeatures) should there be any indication of progress? I don't think anything is actually happening with my system. There is nothing to indicate unraid is pre-clearing the drive and the logs don't seem to show anything of that nature. 

I hope I'm wrong of course, if its doing something in the background then I can wait.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

I haven't added a drive without using pre-Clear in over 3 years; but with v4 it definitely noted on the web GUI that a clear was in process -- and you couldn't Start the array while that was happening.  I would certainly assume v5 will show the same.    What you described definitely does not sound correct.

HOWEVER ... re-reading your description, it's not clear whether or not you're doing this correctly.  Does the Web GUI allow you to ASSIGN the new drive to the array?    If so, look carefully on the Main page and see if there is a button to CLEAR the drive that has to be checked.  I simply don't know what the display looks like with v5, since I've never added a drive that wasn't already pre-cleared.

Thanks. It definitely sounds worth doing when adding drives. What is the behaviour of the system during this time? In the gui (simplefeatures) should there be any indication of progress? I don't think anything is actually happening with my system. There is nothing to indicate unraid is pre-clearing the drive and the logs don't seem to show anything of that nature. 

I hope I'm wrong of course, if its doing something in the background then I can wait.

 

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

On my system it is completely unresponsive while the pre-clear stage is working with no access to the array.  Since I believe it takes something like 8-10 hours for a 3TB drive and I did not want to be without my array for that long I must admit I stopped the system  and reset things so that I could do the pre-clear separately.

Using the pre-clear script is typically much longer (~30 hours on my system with a 3TB drive) as by default that adds a pre-clear and post-clear passes (although there are parameter options to suppress those).  However that is less of a hardship as the array is then not out of action while the pre-clear is running.

 

On my system it is completely unresponsive while the pre-clear stage is working with no access to the array. 

That's not surprising => but doesn't the Web GUI have a "Clearing" status or some such.  I understand it will no longer respond at that point -- but if it's similar to v4 you have to at least click on "Clear" or some similar button to start the process.

Im pretty sure nothing is happening with my system. After assigning the new drive and clicking start, the page refreshes instantly and the start array button remains available, the checkbox is cleared and can be re-selected and the drives can be assigned/unassigned via the dropdowns.

I can then unassign the drive and start the array with the normal drives.

See images for the v5.0 options, I don't believe there is a Clear Button.

I would certainly expect that the status would no longer be "Stopped" -- and that there would be SOME indication that the drive was clearing.

Hopefully someone who's actually done this with v5 can chime in with just how it SHOULD look.

But I agree the indication seems to be nothing is happening -- otherwise it shouldn't let you do other actions without at least canceling the operating.

I suspect the vast majority of folks who read these forums use Pre-Clear and never even encounter the native UnRAID clear process 

Thanks garycase - I think I'll join the masses and use the preclear utility on the drive to see if it helps.

I've currently got the preclear running - seems easy enough - going at 134MB/s but still looks like its going to take a while. Is it necessary to leave the array stopped throughout this process? Wouldn't mind watching a movie 

I've currently got the preclear running - seems easy enough - going at 134MB/s but still looks like its going to take a while. Is it necessary to leave the array stopped throughout this process? Wouldn't mind watching a movie 

No.  The whole point is that the pre-clear is taking place on a disk that is not currently assigned to the array, so it has not effect on the array operation. 

In fact is a good idea if the array IS started before you start the pre-clear process as I have a feeling that is required for the check in the pre-clear script that makes sure you are not pre-clearing a disk already assigned to the array (i.e. clearing the wrong drive).

As noted, you can start the array, write to it, read from it, watch a movie, or whatever.

Whether the array's running of not doesn't matter r.e. the pre-clear script protecting you from using an assigned drive -- I'm fairly certain that check is based on the config file (but Joe L could answer more definitively on this).

The Pre-Clear will run a long time (much longer than the UnRAID clear, as it is far more thorough).  For a 3TB drive I'd expect ~ 30 hours or so.

 

Whether the array's running of not doesn't matter r.e. the pre-clear script protecting you from using an assigned drive -- I'm fairly certain that check is based on the config file (but Joe L could answer more definitively on this).

 

Yes my experience here backs this up - the only selectable drive was the unassigned drive, array not started.

Thanks guys - hopefully preclearing resolves this.

Thanks guys - hopefully preclearing resolves this.

I suspect it will => post a note when it's done.

Yes - it has worked. I will now always preclear first. Im a bit miffed as to how I never had to do this with the first couple of new drives I added onto the onboard sata but Im just happy its installed successfully.

Thanks everyone.

Glad it worked.  I also don't understand why it didn't appear to work without the pre-clear.    But as I noted earlier, it's SO much more convenient to use the Pre-Clear script that I don't think any knowledgeable UnRAID user does it any other way.

In fact, I'm a bit surprised the pre-Clear script hasn't simply been incorporated into the Web GUI as one of the options for new drives 

It seems some folks who've had this same issue resolved it by removing Simple Features.

Curious whether that's the "key" to the issue ==> were you using Simple Features?

were you using Simple Features?

Yes!  Check the syslog which was posted earlier.

were you using Simple Features?

 

Yes!  Check the syslog which was posted earlier.

Interesting.  Of 7 folks who've had this issue, 4 have said "No" to Simple Features being installed; this one had it; and the other two haven't responded to my question.  I think that's enough to conclude the problem is NOT simply having Simple Features installed.