Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
Can you configure flow control not the 2 ports that you have teamed and see if you still have the dropout issue.
The switch ports per se are not teamed. Only the ReadyNAS has any teaming on it. I've always run all our ReadyNAS devices with no teaming on the switch. I have another ReadyNAS Pro 6 that's never had any issues and is round robin teamed and no switch teaming... And still another ReadyNAS Pro 2 which has some different issues yet runs active backup teaming and no switch teaming... Our switches are not the cause of the problem.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
So you have another Pro6 on the same switch with no issues?
It's not presently being used and it was not having any issues last year, and I would love to use it but I'm told it's not possible to take the disks out of one ReadyNAS and plunk them into another one. The one that has worked before has 500GB disks in it and the one that has network issues has 1TB disks.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
If the drives came out of the same architecture they can be moved. So x86 can be moved to x86 and Sparc can be moved to Sparc.. Just not across. So you have a ReadyNAS Pro 6 and another ReadyNAS Pro 6?
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
If you can see my support cases you can see what ReadyNASes I have...all our ReadyNAS Pros are x86 architecture though one is older than the other and has more RAM. 🙂 Thank you for explaining things...seems I could do a complete swap. Don't think I could do it today but perhaps tomorrow... If I do this do the ReadyNAS names and IPs remain the same -- are all the settings transferred?? If I do this and the issue re-appears then it's definitely software. Thank you, Tom
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
Yes the Name and Ip will move with the drives. Just to confirm this was the unit that was replaced in September? If it still shows up after moving then definitely something with the software on these drives.
The ReadyNAS having issues is the one that received a replacement -- it IS the replacement unit. I will mark the two units first before transferring because they look so alike etc. i'll update in here after trying this out etc. -- it may take a few days though.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Hello Chewbacca... It happened again!! Had to manually reboot it by pressing the power button. First time in a couple weeks I think. This is with T31 and active backup teaming. Have collected the log and will send it to your attention with the approximate times of network connection failures (routine sql database backups and log backups, plus one other backup). Feel I must give up on Netgear support since the reply I received to the case I opened yesterday indicates that the responder probably did not read the referenced previous case, and was/is too quick to blame the backups (finger-pointing is a common practice from many tech support departments) and asked questions which showed a lack of understanding of the case. Now to collect and send the log. Hope it has something useful in it for you. Also hope to try switching around the units today. Thank you, Tom
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
I just now swapped the drives between ReadyNAS Pros. All the drives from the ReadyNAS with "issues" are now in the ReadyNAS that has NOT had "issues." However it is still running 4.2.19 and I'm not going to change it...I have all the NASes labeled and the disks labeled. Now to observe during the coming days. Thank you, Tom
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Since the working unit was using 4.2.19 I would stick with it since you said you had issues with 4.2.19 on your unit with issues. If the problem moves with the drives it shows that there is something on the OS itself that could be corrupted or having a problem.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
Since the working unit was using 4.2.19 I would stick with it since you said you had issues with 4.2.19 on your unit with issues. If the problem moves with the drives it shows that there is something on the OS itself that could be corrupted or having a problem. Let me know if it hangs.
I've had issues for months with the one NAS -- I will observe carefully. Only change between the containers besides the disks and firmware is that the disks change brought over the active backup teaming. I will update whenever I have an event (e.g. something does not work) to report. No news will be good news hopefully. Thank you, Tom
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Hello Chewbacca, Short summary: VMware backup software is daily reporting warnings associated with network connectivity issues. This is with 4.2.19 firmware. 4.2.20-Txx has fewer issues than 4.2.19. Sending logs and more detail via email. You can reply via email if you want. I don't see T34 for download yet. Thank you, Tom
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
T34 has been posted. However link hasn't been posted in the beta release notes thread. Working fine for btaroli so far however best not to try a beta not posted in that thread unless a Jedi (e.g. Chewbacca) requests you try it.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
I was hoping that you were going to be able to try a 4.2.20 pre T34 release with the box that is working to confirm the issue. 4.2.19 there was a issue with a network hang. That was resolved with 4.2.20 T releases. Since your having the issue from 4.2.17 the issue must be different. So to confirm that hangs are mainly happening when running a backup of SQL?
Can you give me a little more info on the backup that your running?
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
I was hoping that you were going to be able to try a 4.2.20 pre T34 release with the box that is working to confirm the issue. 4.2.19 there was a issue with a network hang. That was resolved with 4.2.20 T releases. Since your having the issue from 4.2.17 the issue must be different. So to confirm that hangs are mainly happening when running a backup of SQL? Can you give me a little more info on the backup that your running?
I have had issues with this ReadyNAS ever since I began using it last May. I can't remember it not having issues and I can't remember anything about its versions etc.
There aren't any boxes that are "working" now, as I am only using one ReadyNAS for serious backups. We have a ReadyNAS Pro 2 with T28 which has other different issues. What we all need is for Netgear to figure it out and fix the network driver issues. Perhaps by resurrecting code from previously non-broken firmware, e.g. 4.2.15 or earlier?? I have no idea. I have enough to do just babysitting this NAS which has become an unreliable unreplaceable child. 🙂
Most of the issues were with our VMware backup software losing connection to the network, as well as with SQL backups. It doesn't matter what the backup or software, so long as Netgear/ReadyNAS can't provide reliable network connectivity, all backups will fail at some point.
4.2.19 in the last several days has definitely required MANUAL reboots. This is after I switched around ReadyNAS boxes. The box to which I had switched things around had worked well before.
Obtaining new hard drives is not an option anymore thanks to the Thailand flooding's artificially driving up hard drive prices.
The box is now running T32 -- T31 simply failed less often than its T## predecessors.
The only thing I can think of to do is an OS re-install -- but I do not know whether and how that will mess up things, nor what settings will be lost, etc. Can NOT have an OS re-install kill any data. Period. Too much important backups on the disks.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
tlyczko: The network driver has been pretty consistent from 4.2.15-4.2.19. There was changes made in 4.2.20 to fix some network issues storagecraft.
So just to confirm you were having VMWare backup issues since 4.2.17 and still having a issue with 4.2.20. Let's deal with one issue first I know you said you had issues with mysql backups.
Your issue could be somewhat different.. Can I get more info about the backup your are running? Amount?
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
tlyczko: The network driver has been pretty consistent from 4.2.15-4.2.19. There was changes made in 4.2.20 to fix some network issues storagecraft. So just to confirm you were having VMWare backup issues since 4.2.17 and still having a issue with 4.2.20. Let's deal with one issue first I know you said you had issues with mysql backups. Your issue could be somewhat different.. Can I get more info about the backup your are running? Amount?
They're SQL Server backups, not mySQL. 🙂 The SQL Server backups only have issues if the NAS has issues. If the NAS reaches a point where it must be manually restarted then the SQL Server backups (full and logs) will of course fail.
Our other major backups were/are being done with phdVirtual Backup for VMware, also/formerly known as esXpress, which backs up our VMs. I must say that all I know is that I have had issues with this NAS since last year and it was even replaced once. I don't recall what version was installed when unfortunately. The support case for when the NAS was replaced will show what firmware it had at the time. The backup software is not the cause of the problems -- tech support could easily find within its logs reports of lost network connectivity.
4.2.20-T32 has been more stable than previous T## but I still must wait and continue observing, I have only had it installed since yesterday. I don't have any of the old log files from last year's cases with Netgear but Netgear may still have them?? If you need the case numbers etc. please advise. Basically the problem is as though the network is plugged and nothing can get through -- not web/http/https, not ssh, nothing. Only a manual pushing the button reboot unplugs things.
I never know when/if the ReadyNAS will stop working. Fortunately of late it has usually stopped working after the VM backups.
I have also noticed that the power off/on instructions don't seem to work -- I never saw anything in the logs about these scheduled events, rebooting daily would reduce the incidence of network problems.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
tlyczko: I will have to look into the vmware backup software and see if I can reproduce the issue. Can I get the version info on that software. Not saying the backup software is a issue but sounds like its what causes the nic to have a issue. We've seen a different backup software cause some other issue we had to look into.
Just to confirm when you are unable to access the NAS. Can you power off normally or a hard power off?
So T32 seems to be working or partially working?
So power off/on does not work at all? So no powering on on the timer or off?
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Chewbacca wrote:
tlyczko: I will have to look into the vmware backup software and see if I can reproduce the issue. Can I get the version info on that software. Not saying the backup software is a issue but sounds like its what causes the nic to have a issue. We've seen a different backup software cause some other issue we had to look into. Just to confirm when you are unable to access the NAS. Can you power off normally or a hard power off? So T32 seems to be working or partially working? So power off/on does not work at all? So no powering on on the timer or off?
The phdVirtual Backup software is presently on 5.4 -- issues have appeared with ALL versions available since last May, which would be 5.1.3 onward. And the issues don't appear all the time. I have emails with discussions about the errors and logfiles info etc. though not the logfiles per se.
Unable to access requires walking up to the NAS and holding down the power button. No other means of communication to the NAS is possible. Period.
As stated, T32 has only been installed since yesterday. Backups today worked -- phdvirtual backup had some other new different issues today which are not related to the ReadyNAS and which were corrected by rebooting the backup appliance and re-running the backup. No issues with the SQL server backups at all.
The timer-based power off/on does not appear to work. No power off/on events are logged for the times I had this configured. This was with eariler firmware versions. I will try it again with T32 and observe what happens.
Re: T28 may still have the network dropout problem??
Ill look into the backup software.
If you have to power off it hard and not do the double tap it would mean that the unit is completely hung and not just the network hung. And this has been the case whenever you don't have access?
Let me know about the power timer, I will double check with T32 also.
