Description of problem: The F8 rescue CD won't boot on our Dell PowerEdge 2500. This machine is currently running F7 fine, but can't now be upgraded to F8. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): F8 release kernel. How reproducible: Always (on this hardware). Steps to Reproduce: 1.Boot the rescue CD. 2.Select NFS install 3.Start installation Actual results: Installation hangs indefinitely. Console shows a loop of ATA errors. Additional info: The errors produced include: SQASHFS error sb_bread failed reading block 0x1736 SQASHFS error unable to read page, block 0x2266 Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 9070 ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen ata1.00: cmd a0/01 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0 0:0/a0 tag 0 upon rebooting the umount of /dev/loop throws an error. I noticed that someone else with the same model of server reported the same problem on the Ubuntu forums, but no progress has been made on that bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/dru/+bug/148466 That bug report has a better log capture than I do. The errors and symptoms look exactly the same.
If it helps the smolt id of this system is: 8b099aa1-0b9b-4ad5-b8ca-f8b50101085e
I've tracked this down some more. This is definitely a kernel problem, probably in the pata_serverworks module, and was introduced with kernel 2.6.23. I tried to read the F8 cd in the current F7 install and it failed. If I revert back to 2.6.22.9-91 it works, but 2.6.23.1-21 fails. The drive seems to be identified the same under both kernels (modprobe pata_serverworks output is the same), but under 2.6.23 I can't read any data from it. I'm assuming that F8 install media uses the newer kernel and therfore won't boot once it moves to using its own driver.
Created attachment 257961 [details] /var/log/messages output from 2.6.23.1-21
Created attachment 257971 [details] Output of modprobe pata_serverworks
I made a bit of progress on this. I did a BIOS update on the server to the latest version (A07). When I rebooted into F7 2.6.23.1-21 I could use the CD drive (which I couldn't before). However, when I tried to use the drive to do the upgrade to F8 using the rescue CD it failed in the same way as before. There would therefore appear to be something which changed between 2.6.23.1-21 and 2.6.23.1-42 which causes this drive to stop working.
I've found a work round which allows this machine to boot from the F8 media. Appending the kernel option: libata.pata_dma=1 Throws up a ton of "Unknown symbol: ata_[something] errors, but does allow the boot to proceed. It seems therefore that this bug is a variant of BZ#242956, although it manifests itself in a different way. Given that Alan Cox said the 242956 was only to be used as a general tracker bug I'll leave this bug open so it doesn't get lost in the large number of different issues in the more general bug.
There is a fix for pata_serverworks in kernel 2.6.23.8-62: 36beb82390235236c60eb97ca526b1cad97e2df3 pata_serverworks: Fix problem with some drive combinations
Created attachment 280821 [details] Log of errors when reading CD under 2.6.23.8-63 I've tried the CD drive under the newly released 2.6.8.23.8-63 kernel and it's still broken despite the ATA patches. I think the errors are the same as before, but I've attached the log from inserting the F8 rescue CD into this machine. The CD is known good (it's the one I installed from once I used the libata command line option).
MMCONFIG was disabled by default in kernel -42. Try adding pci=mmconf to the boot options...
(In reply to comment #9) > Try adding > pci=mmconf > to the boot options... I've tried that but with no success. Same errors as in comment #8.
Since there have been a couple of kernel updates lately I tried this again and got a different and if anything slightly more serious failure: Feb 5 10:04:43 bilin1 kernel: hald[2007]: segfault at b7ea0000 eip 080571b6 esp bfacde10 error 4 This occurred when I inserted a CD into the drive. HAL has been running fine for ages before that.
Something odd is going on with this. After the HAL crash in the last note I restarted HAL and the drive was working again. I mounted and ejected several CDs in different formats and everything worked as normal. A sample log entry was: Feb 5 10:08:27 bilin1 kernel: UDF-fs: Partition marked readonly; forcing readonly mount Feb 5 10:08:27 bilin1 kernel: UDF-fs INFO UDF 0.9.8.1 (2004/29/09) Mounting volume 'Roxio4', timestamp 2006/11/30 11:27 (1000) Feb 5 10:08:27 bilin1 gnome-keyring-daemon[13094]: adding removable location: volume_label_Roxio4 at /media/Roxio4 Feb 5 10:08:27 bilin1 hald: mounted /dev/sr0 on behalf of uid 13779 I then restarted the server and inserted a CD, and am back to the errors like: Feb 5 10:21:47 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen Feb 5 10:21:47 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 cdb 0x28 data 131072 in Feb 5 10:21:47 bilin1 kernel: res 40/00:02:00:0c:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout) Feb 5 10:21:47 bilin1 kernel: ata1: soft resetting port Feb 5 10:21:47 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: configured for UDMA/25 Feb 5 10:21:47 bilin1 kernel: ata1: EH complete Feb 5 10:22:17 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen Feb 5 10:22:17 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 cdb 0x28 data 131072 in Feb 5 10:22:17 bilin1 kernel: res 40/00:02:00:0c:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout) Feb 5 10:22:17 bilin1 kernel: ata1: soft resetting port Feb 5 10:22:18 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: configured for UDMA/25 Feb 5 10:22:18 bilin1 kernel: ata1: EH complete Feb 5 10:22:48 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen Feb 5 10:22:48 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 cdb 0x28 data 131072 in Feb 5 10:22:48 bilin1 kernel: res 40/00:02:00:0c:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout) Feb 5 10:22:48 bilin1 kernel: ata1: soft resetting port Feb 5 10:22:48 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: configured for UDMA/25 Feb 5 10:22:48 bilin1 kernel: ata1: EH complete Feb 5 10:23:18 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen Feb 5 10:23:18 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 cdb 0x28 data 131072 in Feb 5 10:23:18 bilin1 kernel: res 40/00:02:00:0c:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout) Feb 5 10:23:18 bilin1 kernel: ata1: soft resetting port Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: ata1.00: configured for UDMA/25 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor] Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Descriptor sense data with sense descriptors (in hex): Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: 72 0b 00 00 00 00 00 0e 09 0c 00 00 00 02 00 00 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: 00 0c 00 00 a0 40 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: No additional sense information Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 232 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: printk: 30 messages suppressed. Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 29 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 30 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 31 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 32 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 33 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 34 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 35 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 36 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 37 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 38 Feb 5 10:23:19 bilin1 kernel: ata1: EH complete I tried restarting HAL again but it made no difference. Looking at my yum.log there have been no HAL or kernel changes since the machine was last rebooted so I'm at a loss to explain what was different this time.
I've just upgraded this server to Fedora 9 and everything is working again. The install media boots without the need for additional kernel options and CDs mount reliably in Gnome once the machine was upgraded. I haven't checked back to see if any of the updates to F8 made the drive work there as well, but since I'm not going to be able to test an older version now I'll close the bug as resolved.