I updated my ReadyNAS 104 from firmware 6.2.4 to 6.4.1 and a scheduled backup job could no longer run. The destination was a Seagate Go-Flex drive with USB 3.0 connected to the front USB port on the RN 104 (formatted NTFS) and the backup ran fine connected to this same port under firmware 6.2.4. I found that the upgrade to the newer firmware had erased the destination drive name from my backup settings, but when I replaced that info with the new suggested name for the Seagate drive the backup still would not run. Upon checking the backup logs I find the following entry: “Backup Status: Fail: destination is read-only or files/folders could not be created. Check if these files or folders meet the destination file system limitation.”Also when the backup fails it locks up the ReadyNAS with the backup light continually blinking. I can’t even power it down by the power button, I have to disconnect the power supply.I have run a disk check on the USB drive and the ReadyNAS and both come back clean.

Hi RonSchmiege, Welcome to the community! Please connect and USB disk straight to the computer to see if it has turned to read-only mode. This article may also help: ReadyNAS OS 6: USB drive is mounted as read-only Regards,

I didn't make it clear in my original note that I used chkdsk, but I did mention that I had checked the USB volumn and found no errors (but I did use chkdsk to do that) I also safely ejected the USB disk before plugging it back into the ReadyNAS and attempting to run the backup. I have now followed this same procedure 6 times to attempt to run backup and every time it starts the backup and locks up (it won't complete the backup, it continually flashes the backup light, it locks up the backup utility and claims I don't have any backups set up on the readynas, it locks up the backup log and claims there are no backup logs on the readynas, and it locks up the other system logs and claims there are no system logs on the readynas). When this happens I also cannot shut the readynas down (I have to unplug the USB drive from the readynas before the readynas can be rebooted or shut down (and of course this leaves the USB drive in an unstable state so I have to run chkdsk on it, safely eject it and reinsert it into the readynas port. After rebooting the readynas I then can see my backup job, I can check both the system logs and the backup logs and they indicate the backups have all lasted less than a second and the USB drive is read only.I have successfully copied files from the readynas manually to the USB just before I run the backup so I know the drive is not read only before the backup job starts. It's the backup job that is causing it to become read only.

Hi Ron Schmiege, Thank you for the detailed information that you have provided. Will you give the latest Beta Firmware a try or test another USB storage device? Kind regards, BrianL NETGEAR Community Team

I am still having problems with the backup. I installed the beta firmware update 6.4.2T72 you suggested, and it did change things some. I can now complete a short backup job. It backed up a 2GB directory in under 2 minutes and wrote a complete description in the backup log. It also exited the backup program and returned controll of the backups to me. However, it won't complete a backup of a 52GB directory. It starts fine but in an hour or so the backup process slows to a crawl (as indicated by the drive activity lights on the NAS and backup drive). It eventually stops writing to the backup drive (no activity on the backup drive). I let it run for another 30 hours but nothing changed. The The backup indicated it was still running (backup light still flashing), I couldn't access the backup program from the Radar admin page, and I couldn't shut down the NAS (had to pull the power plug to reboot it and stop the backup program). When it rebooted the admin page said the backup job was cancelled but there was no entry made in the backup logs.It acts like something is choking down the backup program like a memory leak or something.

Hi RonSchmiege, Could you try another USB storage device? Then create a new backup job. Let us know if the backup fails or completes. Kind regards, BrianL NETGEAR Community Team

RN 104 won't run backup & locks up after 6.4.1 update

12 Replies

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JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 26, 2015
Hi RonSchmiege,

Welcome to the community!

Please connect and USB disk straight to the computer to see if it has turned to read-only mode.

This article may also help: ReadyNAS OS 6: USB drive is mounted as read-only

Regards,
- RonSchmiege
  Tutor
  Dec 26, 2015
  I didn't make it clear in my original note that I used chkdsk, but I did mention that I had checked the USB volumn and found no errors (but I did use chkdsk to do that) I also safely ejected the USB disk before plugging it back into the ReadyNAS and attempting to run the backup. I have now followed this same procedure 6 times to attempt to run backup and every time it starts the backup and locks up (it won't complete the backup, it continually flashes the backup light, it locks up the backup utility and claims I don't have any backups set up on the readynas, it locks up the backup log and claims there are no backup logs on the readynas, and it locks up the other system logs and claims there are no system logs on the readynas). When this happens I also cannot shut the readynas down (I have to unplug the USB drive from the readynas before the readynas can be rebooted or shut down (and of course this leaves the USB drive in an unstable state so I have to run chkdsk on it, safely eject it and reinsert it into the readynas port. After rebooting the readynas I then can see my backup job, I can check both the system logs and the backup logs and they indicate the backups have all lasted less than a second and the USB drive is read only.
  I have successfully copied files from the readynas manually to the USB just before I run the backup so I know the drive is not read only before the backup job starts. It's the backup job that is causing it to become read only.
  - BrianL2
    NETGEAR Employee Retired
    Dec 28, 2015
    Hi Ron Schmiege,
    
    Thank you for the detailed information that you have provided. Will you give the latest Beta Firmware a try or test another USB storage device?
    
    Kind regards,
    
    BrianL
    NETGEAR Community Team
dsnpevl
Virtuoso
Feb 05, 2016
HI RonSchmiege,

I have had a similar issue already back in Jan 2015 with an older version of the OS6. When trying to backup to a USB drive the first time it would succeed. Any subsequent backups would fail with:

Backup: Error backup job 'data to USB_HDD_4': destination is read-only.
Only after removing the read-only flag by connecting the USB drive to a Windows machine, the backup would work again. I found that a certain part of the data on the NAS contained a Windows backup with a very deep directory structure that seemed to cause the issue. Never found a good way to solve it, though. And I always used proper eject procedures and the USB disk was working fine. Eventually I decided to remove the complete Windows backup from the NAS. This solved the problem immediately and I never had problems with "destination is read-only" since. This leads me to believe that there is a problem in the backup procedure to USB that in some obscure cases (like e.g. a very deep dir structure with extremely long file names) will switch on the "read-only" flag on the USB drive.

See also: https://community.netgear.com/ejquo23388/board/message?board.id=readynas-backup&message.id=10196#M10196
- StephenB
  Guru - Experienced User
  Feb 06, 2016
  dsnpevl wrote:
  
  This leads me to believe that there is a problem in the backup procedure to USB that in some obscure cases (like e.g. a very deep dir structure with extremely long file names) will switch on the "read-only" flag on the USB drive.
  
  That sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. There is of course a 260 character limit to the qualified filename size, and that can get in the way when copying over the network.
  
  It does sound like a bug in the paragon software in the NAS though. If you can reproduce this (short of a full windows backup) you might want to PM skywalker.
  - dsnpevl
    Virtuoso
    Feb 06, 2016
    
    StephenB wrote:
    dsnpevl wrote:
    This leads me to believe that there is a problem in the backup procedure to USB that in some obscure cases (like e.g. a very deep dir structure with extremely long file names) will switch on the "read-only" flag on the USB drive.
    
    That sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. There is of course a 260 character limit to the qualified filename size, and that can get in the way when copying over the network.
    
    It does sound like a bug in the paragon software in the NAS though. If you can reproduce this (short of a full windows backup) you might want to PM skywalker.
    
    Unfortuneatly, I no longer have that specific backup any more, so I cannot reproduce it. After spending several days trying to find the root cause, without success, I decided that the backup was not that important to keep and removed it from the NAS. That stopped the read-only message from occuring during backup to USB. I did document my findings in this thread: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Backing-up-to-your-ReadyNAS/After-backup-Destination-is-read-only/td-p/960340 . Hope this helps.