RN214 ReadyNAS Alert Message (ReadyNAS Volume:Critical) email

[strykeroz]

Hi guys

I've been trying to register my ReadyNAS 214 (RN21400, purchased January) for a support ticket unsuccessfully for some nights now, and in the interim the problem has worsened and it no longer boots. I received an email from it "System volume root's usage is 100%. This condition should not occur under normal conditions. Contact technical support." but when I try to register the product on the netgear site I get "A problem has occured - please retry later", and tonight I got "Sorry, but the requested page is unavailable due to a server issue. Our engineers are working on it, please check back later."

That aside, back to the issue at hand. Looking at the forum there's a bunch of reasons for this error all to do with large temp files. However I cannot get to the admin page on the device to turn on SSH. I tried to PuTTY into the box hoping it was enabled , but get "connection refused". The box was still emailing me that nightly rsync backups were completing, so it's still functional to some extent but it hasn't uploaded any files to Wasabi for the past 5 days (and is far from completely sync'd yet). So in hopes of getting the http services back to get to the admin page I cycled the power - and the product now boots to 99% then eventually the power light stops flashing and stays solidly lit, along with the light on the backup button.

Is there a way to boot to USB and mount the RAID, so I can find/delete the large files and disable ClamAV (which seems to get the blame for this often)? Failing that is there a way to reset the root partition to factory without losing the data on the RAID volume? Only believe it or not, this now contains all my photos recently recovered from my previous (non-ReadyNAS) NAS failure. I'm hoping getting back on track here won't be nearly so costly.

Unfortunately I do not know what firmware etc applies but I had updated when prompted to.

Thanks in advance, Geoff

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@strykeroz wrote:

I'm happy to have a go with telnet. So booting into tech support mode enables this?

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First you should choose whether you want Netgear support to fix it, or if you want to try and fix it yourself.  It can be messy to go down both paths at once.

If you do want to use tech support mode, then instructions for booting are on pages 58-59 here: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/ReadyNAS_%20OS6_Desktop_HM_EN.pdf

You should disconnect your USB drives before booting up in tech support mode.

The login is root, and the password is infr8ntdebug.

Once in, you need to start raid and chroot by entering 

# rnutil chroot

The data volume won't be mounted (which actually makes troubleshooting the space usage easier, since there are a couple of mount points on the OS partition that can hide what's underneath).

One thing to look at is the USB mount points in /media.  If there is an issue with mounting, then sometimes the backup jobs will write directly to the folders (for instance /media/USB_HDD_1 ).  Those folders should be empty - if they aren't, you should delete whatever's in them.  Similarly /apps should be completely empty.

[StephenB]

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@strykeroz wrote:

so I can find/delete the large files and disable ClamAV (which seems to get the blame for this often)?

From what I've seen here, the recent ClamAV issue only happened on RN100 systems - not the RN200 or above.  If you use plex, I suspect it is more likely to be the cause.

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@strykeroz wrote:

Is there a way to boot to USB and mount the RAID

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Not exactly.  What you'd do is boot the system in tech support mode.  Then you can connect with telnet (if you know how), and mount the OS partition.

If you have some knowledge of linux, and want to pursue this path let us know, and we can provide more information.

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@strykeroz wrote:

I've been trying to register my ReadyNAS 214 (RN21400, purchased January) for a support ticket unsuccessfully for some nights now

@JohnCM_S, @Marc_V: can you help with this?

[Marc_V]

Hi @strykeroz

Welcome to the Community!

Can you PM me the NAS SN so we can check with Support and create a ticket for you.

Many thanks!

Regards

[strykeroz]

Thanks guys.

FWIW I've not been using plex.  I do have the wasabi cloud service running, and two rsync jobs daily copying to an attached USB drive, and dropbox connected as well.

I'm happy to have a go with telnet. So booting into tech support mode enables this?

It's late so rather than risk making things worse I'll have a crack tomorrow night.

Cheers!

Geoff

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@strykeroz wrote:

I'm happy to have a go with telnet. So booting into tech support mode enables this?

---

First you should choose whether you want Netgear support to fix it, or if you want to try and fix it yourself.  It can be messy to go down both paths at once.

If you do want to use tech support mode, then instructions for booting are on pages 58-59 here: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/ReadyNAS_%20OS6_Desktop_HM_EN.pdf

You should disconnect your USB drives before booting up in tech support mode.

The login is root, and the password is infr8ntdebug.

Once in, you need to start raid and chroot by entering 

# rnutil chroot

The data volume won't be mounted (which actually makes troubleshooting the space usage easier, since there are a couple of mount points on the OS partition that can hide what's underneath).

One thing to look at is the USB mount points in /media.  If there is an issue with mounting, then sometimes the backup jobs will write directly to the folders (for instance /media/USB_HDD_1 ).  Those folders should be empty - if they aren't, you should delete whatever's in them.  Similarly /apps should be completely empty.

[strykeroz]

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@StephenB wrote:

One thing to look at is the USB mount points in /media.  If there is an issue with mounting, then sometimes the backup jobs will write directly to the folders (for instance /media/USB_HDD_1 ).  Those folders should be empty - if they aren't, you should delete whatever's in them.  Similarly /apps should be completely empty.

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Thanks Stephen you called it.  /apps was empty but /media/USB_HDD_1 included the remains of a failed backup and this had choked the filesystem.  I leave that 5TB USB drive connected and powered - not sure under what circumstance it would have become unmounted.  Is there a mechanism for preventing this issue recurring?

[StephenB]

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@strykeroz wrote:
Is there a mechanism for preventing this issue recurring?

Not that I know of. 

Clearly it's a bug (the NAS failed to detect that the disk was no longer mounted).  Fortunately it doesn't happen often.

BTW, you can troubleshoot this w/o tech support mode if you have ssh enabled.  The trick is to remount the OS partition as /mnt

# mount --bind // /mnt

Then look in /mnt for the files.  There will be no mount points on those placeholder folders, so you can see what's in them.  The lack of mount points also speeds up the search.

When done, use umount to dismount it.

# cd //
# umount /mnt

If you do damage with ssh (or tech support mode for that matter), Netgear reserves the right to deny paid support until you do a factory default.

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@strykeroz wrote:
Thanks Stephen you called it.

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I'm glad I could help 

[strykeroz]

Unfortunately this occurred again with the backup overnight.  I think the medium term solution will be to move that USB drive to another device and have it rsync across the network.  At least that way if the USB drive disconnects it won't clutter the NAS.  In the longer term I have the cloud backup presently syncing.

For reference it's a Seagate 5TB Desktop Expansion Drive, model SRD0NF2, part number 1TFAP4-500

FWIW I have an email saying the backup failed - Subject: ReadyNAS Alert Message (ReadyNAS Backup: Error) followed by the familiar Subject: ReadyNAS Alert Message (ReadyNAS Volume: Critical); System volume root's usage is 100%. This condition should not occur...

But the NAS has not sent any email that the USB volume demounted or remounted at any time yesterday.  

[StephenB]

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@strykeroz wrote:

I think the medium term solution will be to move that USB drive to another device and have it rsync across the network.

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Annoying, but I agree it's probably the best work-around.