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Date:      Tue, 12 May 2015 12:25:40 -0400
From:      Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
To:        Ian Lepore <ian@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Ralf Wenk <iz-rpi03@hs-karlsruhe.de>, freebsd-arm@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: state of FreeBSD ARM (less stable than 6 months ago)
Message-ID:  <9F66E210-24E2-42C4-BEF9-5234F56686BA@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
In-Reply-To: <1431438508.6170.258.camel@freebsd.org>
References:  <5550C252.6030001@foxvalley.net> <1431357226.2428197.265704673.6A544F74@webmail.messagingengine.com> <555177D9.8080001@foxvalley.net> <E1Ys3w8-003kLQ-NY@smtp.hs-karlsruhe.de> <1431438508.6170.258.camel@freebsd.org>

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On May 12, 2015, at 9:48 AM, Ian Lepore <ian@freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 2015-05-12 at 08:45 +0200, Ralf Wenk wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 May 2015, at 21:47:37, Dan Raymond wrote:
>>> On 5/11/2015 9:13 AM, Mark Felder wrote:
>>>> On Mon, May 11, 2015, at 09:53, Dan Raymond wrote:
>>>>> I've been running an email and web server using FreeBSD 11 on a
>>>>> Raspberry Pi B+ since November.  It has crashed 3 times since then
>>>>> (roughly every two months).  I'm currently running r277334.  I =
thought
>>>>> I'd try the latest build to see if stability has improved. I =
purchased a
>>>>> Raspberry Pi 2 and used the latest crochet to built r282738.  No
>>>>> problems building it and it booted up fine.  However, it crashes =
about
>>>>> an hour into building some ports I use for my server (nginx, php,
>>>>> etc.).  I tried twice last night and it crashed both times.  Is =
anybody
>>>>> looking into these stability issues?
>>>>>=20
>>>> RPi2 support is something like less than a week old for SMP and DMA
>>>> transport. I'm not sure more than a handful of people have actually
>>>> tried it yet. The bugs here will be worked out in time, but if you =
have
>>>> any core dumps or info that can assist in tracking down issues =
you're
>>>> experiencing that would certainly be appreciated.
>>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> These panics always seem to be mmcsd related.  I doubt it has =
anything=20
>>> to do with RPi2 or SMP.
>>>=20
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0:  Controller timeout
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D =
REGISTER DUMP =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Sys addr: 0x4d295a00 | Version:  0x00009902
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Blk size: 0x00000200 | Blk cnt:  0x00000020
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Argument: 0x002d19c0 | Trn mode: 0x0000193a
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Present:  0x01ff0506 | Host ctl: 0x00000003
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Power:    0x0000000f | Blk gap:  0x00000000
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Wake-up:  0x00000000 | Clock:    0x00000507
>>> sdhci_bcm0-slot0: Timeout:  0x0000000e | Int stat: 0x00000010
>>> sdhci_b
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> mmcsd0: Error indicated: 1 Timeout
>>> g_vfs_done():mmcsd0s2a[WRITE(offset=3D1460830208, =
length=3D24576)]error =3D 5
>>> panic: No b_bufobj 0xd767ca00
>>> cpuid =3D 1
>>> KDB: enter: panic
>>> [ thread pid 12 tid 100013 ]
>>> Stopped at      $d.7:   ldrb   r15, [r15, r15, ror r15]!
>>> db>
>>=20
>> I see such panics every two to three months. They happen on a RPi B
>> and RPi B+ as well. I have tried different the SD-Cards on the B and
>> the B+ of course. So I think it is not related to SD-card, =
manufacturer
>> or RPi board.
>>=20
>> Usually they happen in the middle of the night when syslogd(8) tries =
to
>> write something. I have never seen them happen when the RPi has some =
work
>> to do, e.g. is compiling a port.
>>=20
>> Continuing out of the debugger prints the usual messages, but on =
reboot
>> the RPi freeze. Only a power cycle will get it back to operating.
>>=20
>> Very often after such a panic happened my RPi gets "unstable" and =
panics
>> within the next 48 hours again with the same cause. I found out that, =
if
>> that happened  and I force an fsck ignoring the journal there will be =
some
>> minor issue fixed and the RPi is stable again. For the next 2 or 3 =
months.
>>=20
>>=20
>> Ralf
>=20
> IMO, the moral of that story is: Never use softupdates with journaling
> enabled.  For years there have been reports on the mailing lists of =
fsck
> failures when journaling is enabled (not arm-specific).  Sometimes a =
few
> months goes by without a report and you wonder if it got fixed with =
some
> checkin you didn't notice, then the reports crop up again.  My
> conclusion is that journalling has never really worked right.
>=20
> The only advantage of journaling is to speed up fsck on huge
> filesystems.  An sdcard with a handful of GB isn't huge.


It would be really nice if the default for ARM images was not to enable=20=

soft updates journalling on the root file system.  I've found it to=20
cause problems to the point that the first thing I do with a=20
newly-installed FreeBSD/arm image nowadays is to "tunefs -j disable" on=20=

the SD card root file system.  (I still use soft updates, which I don't=20=

find to be a problem.)

(BTW, I do have sympathy for the point of view that says, "But if we=20
turn it off, and people aren't using it, how will we ever test it/fix=20
it?...")

Cheers,

Paul.




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