Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 70354
Burning CD with Freecom drive over 300MB crashes kernel
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:45:01 EDT
Description of Problem: I have successfully been burning CDs with my Freecom CD writer (USB) for a while now (patches for RedHat), but recently the volume of data that i burn has crossed the 300MB line. Now, about the time the burning process gets to 299 or 300 MB, the writer stops, and about a minute or two later, the computer crashes. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.4.18-5 How Reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Hook up a Freecom burner to the USB port and burn a CD larger than 300 MB. 2. 3. Actual Results: If i stay in graphical user mode, the machine simply locks up and the LEDs on the keyboard flash. If i switch over to the first virtual console, i get lots of kernel error messages (then it freezes up). Normally these do not appear in the log, but i got lucky this time, and some were there. Expected Results: I really ought to be able to burn a CD. Additional Information: Athlon XP 1700+, Freecom drive that was part of a special deal through the German company Karstadt, but it looks like nothing more than a repackaged version of one of their portables.
Created attachment 68044 [details] syslog entries
Created attachment 68084 [details] Finally got the complete, normal console output on crash.
I have come closer to finding the problem. It is NOT a problem of being able to burn more than 300MB. One specific file in my possession will always cause this problem. That file is openssl095a-0.9.5a-14.i386.rpm from the RedHat updates download site (for 7.3). As i say, any time i burn that file (alone or with other files), the machine crashes as soon as it starts burning the OpenSSL RPM.
Man, I am sorry for all the blanks you had to waste to diagnose this. Thanks for the perfect trace, I am looking into it. It is a tad intricate though.
CD-RW, my friend. Didn't waste a single blank. :) I have another bit of news that probably won't help, but i'll toss it in for what it's worth: One of the following three files causes the same thing: the LSB update RPM, the two libpng update RPMs. Those being the most recent updates from RedHat's site, of course. I can't tell You which one, because while trying to burn the CD last night, it rebooted my system and hosed the root filesystem. It took some real magic to get things working again, and in only 90 minutes, but with certain drawbacks (the filesystem is no longer ext3; i had to revert back to ext2). Nonetheless, i understandably approach burning another test CD with trepidation.
Is anything happening on this bug? I'm still afraid to burn CDs, and i normally burn patches for RedHat onto CD so i can always have it with me. Computer security is my field, and i feel naked without up-to-date patches...
Sorry to say, stalled.
Can you try with the receint errata 2.4.20-18, please? Sorry to waste your wonderful console capture... I need something fresher to press it with upstream.
No problem! Okay, for the record: <4 arjones@server ~>uname -a Linux server.pipasoft.com 2.4.20-18.9 #1 Thu May 29 06:54:41 EDT 2003 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux Obviously (from the kernel version), this is RH 9. Change in results: This time, there were no blinking LED's, and the machine did not crash so absolutely as before. This time, freecom reset was called, and so on and so forth, as seen in the (new) attached dump, and there was output to the console due to a NULL pointer dereference, but the machine was still sort of hobbling along. Anything i tried to do after that, though (including logging in from a virtual console as root so i could try rebooting) brought more console dumps (everything after the first one in the attachment), until eventually nothing could be done but hard reboot the machine.
Created attachment 92153 [details] Console dump
We have 2.4.20-18.7, which at least should fix the oops. One other guy says the freecom still does not work properly. Would you test and provide some report?
I'm sorry to take so long getting back to You, but i'm VERY busy at the moment. I'm afraid that i don't understand what You want me to test. Did You want me to test 2.4.20-18.7? I guess i could do that (though probably not for another 2 weeks or more), though i personally fail to see the point. I use Red Hat Linux 9 now... Could You please clarify Your comments? Thanks!
I meant that all the io_requiest_lock dropping and also SMP fixes to usb-uhci might make a difference. Of course, if you move to RHL 9, it's only to the better; the only difference would be that release suffix is going to be .9 in errata kernels. All 2.4.20's are done from the same source. How does the 2.4.20-20.9 work? I suspect you cannot live that long without a burner, so what's the workaround? Burning small images only?