Subject: random I/O errors

From: Tony Baldwin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 10:46:02 -0400

Yesterday I was getting random I/O errors for stuff as simple as clear 
(to clear a terminal),
and I got one for halt, even (I manually shut the machine off, and 
rebooted) haven't seen the problem since then but things are sluggish 
and weird.
Is this a warning I should heed?
This is on a brand new (3 days) Jessie (8.5) install on an hdd that 
previously had a Win7 installation and a large storage partition which I 
was having difficulty mounting on another jessie install on another hdd 
in this same machine.
I put /home on it's own partition and rsynced the /home from the other 
jessie install, and now that one (the older one) won't boot without 
going to emergency mode and fscking the disk (haven't even begun to 
diagnose that,but I'm beginning to worry that both hdds are either done, 
or about to be.

tia,
Tony

-- 
http://tonybaldwin.me
all tony, all the time

---

From: Dan Ritter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 09:07:17 -0400

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:46:02AM -0400, Tony Baldwin wrote:
> Yesterday I was getting random I/O errors for stuff as simple as clear (to
> clear a terminal),
> and I got one for halt, even (I manually shut the machine off, and rebooted)
> haven't seen the problem since then but things are sluggish and weird.
> previously had a Win7 installation and a large storage partition which I was
> having difficulty mounting on another jessie install on another hdd in this
> same machine.
> jessie install, and now that one (the older one) won't boot without going to
> emergency mode and fscking the disk (haven't even begun to diagnose that,but
> I'm beginning to worry that both hdds are either done, or about to be.

Go make a backup of everything you care about, today. Copy to a
new disk, check it, then disconnect and label your backup.

After that, go look at /var/log/dmesg for error messages; copy them
and show them to us.

-dsr-

---

From: Tony Baldwin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 10:17:29 -0400

On 09/19/2016 09:57 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 09:27:43AM -0400, Tony Baldwin wrote:
>> On 09/19/2016 09:07 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:
>> I don't have a new disk on hand at the moment; I have ordered a new hdd, but
>> it won't be here until Friday, it's a seagate 2TB SCSI drive, I will likely
>> install Jessie on it when it arrives, and rsync my /home to it from this
>> drive I'm using now.
>>
>> Last night I reinstalled on one of the existing drives, and rsynced over my
>> /home/ from the other.
>>
>> This one seems to be working okay at the moment, but I'm afraid to reboot
>> until the other drive arrives.
>>
>> right now dmesg | grep error gives me:
>>
>> [   15.709107] EXT4-fs (sdb1): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro
>> [   16.793678] r8169 0000:04:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
>>
>> Dunno if that helps, the r8169 has something to do with the network card,
>> unless I'm mistaken.
> You are correct, but you grepped for errors instead of actually
> looking.
>
> 1. make a backup before you do other things. Don't do anything
> with this system until you have made the backup.
>
> 2. go look in dmesg yourself.
>
> 3. when someone offers you advice on a mailing list, continue
> the conversation on the mailing list so that other people can
> (a) assist
> and
> (b) learn
>
>
> -dsr-
Sorry about the prior, off-list reply, DSR, I just keep forgetting to 
list reply (old age, and a brain tumor).
I don't have anywhere to put a backup at the moment except by copying 
stuff to both of these old, failing drives and praying they don't buy 
the farm until the new one arrives on Friday, so I'm using this system, 
I have no other machine, and I have work that must be done, today 
(freelancer with deadlines to meet).
Looking through dmesg, piped to less, and searching for  "error", 
"fail", or even "mount" I don't find anything seemingly any more 
relevant, as far as I can tell, than the errors I already posted above, 
unless any of this is useful (does all seem to have something to do with 
the hdds in the case, but doesn't seem to mention any errors or failures):
  ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    2.175831] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    2.347800] ata6: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[    2.347838] ata4: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    2.348619] ata4.00: ATA-8: ST1500DL003-9VT16L, CC3C, max UDMA/133
[    2.348625] ata4.00: 2930277168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 
31/32)
[    2.349495] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
[    2.349554] ata6.00: ATAPI: HL-DT-ST DVD+/-RW GSA-H73N, B103, max 
UDMA/100
[    2.349743] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA ST1500DL003-9VT1 CC3C 
PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    2.351653] ata6.00: configured for UDMA/100
[    2.353753] scsi 5:0:0:0: CD-ROM            HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GSA-H73N 
B103 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    2.358569] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 2930277168 512-byte logical blocks: 
(1.50 TB/1.36 TiB)
[    2.358664] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    2.358667] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 2930277168 512-byte logical blocks: 
(1.50 TB/1.36 TiB)
[    2.358671] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks
[    2.358675] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    2.358711] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: 
enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[    2.358780] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[    2.358785] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    2.358804] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: 
enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[    2.366117] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[    2.366123] cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[    2.366384] sr 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[    2.367053] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[    2.367218] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[    2.367281] sr 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5
[    2.392615]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 >
[    2.393650] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[    2.412696]  sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 >
[    2.413893] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk

-- 
http://tonybaldwin.me
all tony, all the time

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From: Lisi Reisz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 18:29:25 +0100

On Monday 19 September 2016 15:17:29 Tony Baldwin wrote:
> I just keep forgetting to

Well, that's a better excuse than many.  Beats "I can't be bothered" any day.

I'm so sorry to hear it.  Old age is unfortunately incurable.  I know someone 
who was "cured" of a brain tumour.  (He had an operation.  He has an annual 
check-up and old age is currently looking like the bigger threat.)

Lisi

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From: Nicolas George <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 08:51:31 +0200

> Well, that's a better excuse than many.  Beats "I can't be bothered" any day.

If you think about it a few more seconds, you realize this is the same
issue: the MUA not selecting the correct recipients by default. Neither
unwanted CCs nor forgotten CCs happen under normal circumstances with
correctly configured lists.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George