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Forum Discussion
Firmware Update Wipes Out Volume
Monday, I needed to power off my ReadyNAS as I was swapping out the batteries on my UPS. When I brought it back up, I saw the alert for the 6.10.3 firmware update, so I figured since it was after hours, it would be a good time to apply the new update. However after the NAS booted back up with the new firmware, my volume was missing and I was getting an error that I need to remove inactive drives. Needless to say, that is when panic set in.
I called support, waited about 30 minutes on hold to get someone who told me that I need to be transferred to someone else... 30+ more minutes and the same thing, the person who answered told me that I needed to be transferred to the ReadyNAS support group. That took about 20 minutes and I finally get ahold of one person who was willing to help. He sends me a KB about booting into Tech Support mode so I can get the DebugMode code... so I do that and then I wait and wait and wait and wait. Finally after 5 hours of waiting, I decide to head home and try again the next day. Multiple calls to support and no one can help me. I eventaully get to someone in the ReadyNAS group but he tells me that since I had a case with the previous support technician, it would need to go to him. 3 days later and I am still stuck where I started. No one at Netgear seems willing or able to help.
The ReadyNAS was working perfectly prior to the firmware update, but after the udpate, my volume is missing and as a result, so is the data that we need. Why is it so hard to get support from Netgear? I have seen other posts about the same thing happening so it seems to be a problem with the firmware or something and the least they could do is help a customer fix the problem that is on their end.
This has to be the worst experience with tech support in my 30 years of working in IT. It has turned me off from ever buying a Netgear product for home or for work.
11 Replies
phrosty23 wrote:
Monday, I needed to power off my ReadyNAS
Do you recall how you did that? Your symptoms suggest you did a "hard" (not clean) shutdown. Lost writes in the cache would then explain the volume becoming out of sync and not mounted.
Paid support is unfortunately the best path to remount it. Perhaps JohnCM_S or Marc_V can escalate your case.
The first shutdown was from the web Admin Page and going to the power button link, dropping down and selecting Shut Down.
Upon powering up and getting the notification of the firmware update, I proceeded to install the update and then do the reboot as instructed. So there was no hard shutdown.The one person I have talked to out of probably 8 calls and 6 hours on hold was Stefan. He had me reboot into Tech Support mode, get the debut code and to let him know what it was. I have been trying to get back in touch with him or his group since Monday, but apparently making to Stefan the first time was like finding a leprechaun riding a unicorn.
I have no problem paying for support, I just can't seem to get ahold of anyone on the phone or through my support ticket.
Welcome to the Community!
Our apologies on the inconvenience you have experienced with Support.
Can you still login and download the full logs? Can we ask for the case number you have and the logs be sent to us via PM? I think your case has been escalated to the higher tier to fix the inactive volume issue after the update.
Issue during update or after the update has finished are usually caused by an underlying issue on the NAS like a failing drive or a full OS or Data Volume. Your data might still be there and the array can be remounted by Support. I would suggest to let the NAS stay on Tech Support mode since the Expert handling it might be trying to access your NAS to fix it.
Will be waiting for the case number so we can check and follow up with Support.
Regards
I finally got through to another guy who has been working on it. 3 days and the on hold time seems excessive but I am glad to have finally made some progress.
Currently waiting to hear back from him. We have looked at the logs and from the logs, everything was fine until the firmware update and then apparently it did not see drive 3 and 4. Slot 3 does this a lot and I am on the 4th drive in slot 3. I am pretty sure the drives are fine, just something with backplane that they slide into decides there is no drive present... so according to the tech, when it booted up after the firmware without seeing 3 and 4, it degraded the RAID and deleted the volume. Looks like data recovery is the next step, just hope he gets back to me soon.
phrosty23 wrote:Currently waiting to hear back from him. We have looked at the logs and from the logs, everything was fine until the firmware update and then apparently it did not see drive 3 and 4. Slot 3 does this a lot and I am on the 4th drive in slot 3. I am pretty sure the drives are fine, just something with backplane that they slide into decides there is no drive present... so according to the tech, when it booted up after the firmware without seeing 3 and 4, it degraded the RAID and deleted the volume. Looks like data recovery is the next step, just hope he gets back to me soon.
While I don't like to disparage a Netgear employee when I may not have all the facts, that's just not what normally happens nor what appears to have happened on your NAS from the screen grab you posted. The NAS does not delete the volume because it's bad, it fails to mount it. You have both an unmounted (corrupt or incomplete) BTRFS volume (Netshare) and an MDADM RAID 5 array (Netshare-1) present. Data recovery may still be necessary if the BTRFS volume got corrupted in a failed attempt to mount it (if Drive 4 was still partly functionsl, that could easily happen), but that's not the first step that should be tried. But what needs to be tried can't be done remotely by the tech.
You need to test all the drives and the chassis. If you can find a combination of three good drives and three good slots, then putting those together may give you a usable (though degraded) volume from which you can copy the data prior to replacing your NAS (assuming the bad slot isn't just contamination in the connector or a caddy not fully seating), just move those drives to your new NAS, or (best option) both.
The best way to test the drives is with the vendor's tool (WD Lifeguard or Seatools) and a USB to SATA dock.
The best way to test the chassis is to use a spare drive (containing no data you care about) and create a new volume in slot 1, then power down and move to each slot and see if it boots.
My guess is that slot 3 is bad (as you've already figured out) and drive 4 has a problem. So drives 1, 2, and 3 in slots 1, 2, and 4 may get you going. Just trying that is not a good idea, as it could make recovery more difficult if thats not the (whole) story.
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