After update firmware 6.4.0, RN10400 doesnt boot

[fxmail]

This readynas has been acting up for the past year...it hangs after doing backups and I have to hard boot by unplugging the power.  GUI and RAIDar or ssh do not work to access the NAS.  I suspect a memory leak and have been updating the firmware in the hopes that some day Netgear will fix this issue.  I updated from 6.2.x to 6.4.0...BIG MISTAKE.  I should have known not to update to a 6.4.0 version...x.0 versions have all kinds of bugs in them...even though they are "tested'  Well the first boot took forever as I think they have done something to scan the file system everytime it but.  They are also displaying the snap shot space now which is probably slowing everything down too.   I think it is scanning the snapshot now too. 

Well the backups hung up the unit again this weekend as usual and now I rebooted and it is stuck in booting.and the activity light is solid.  Of course Netgear wants me to pay for this issue as it is my fault.  The power klight is blinking solid and I can ping the unit but can not access raidar or the GUI admin page.  Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

If I dont get any I will be trying to boot to the USB recovery stick and see about re-install or do some disk test...  As a last resort I will have to pay Netgear and hopefully they can fix this issue and revert the firmware back to 6.2.x...

[BrianL2]

Hi fxmail,

Welcome to the community!

Thank you for reporting the issue that you have experienced after updating to the latest Firmware version 6.4.0. I suggest that you run the USB boot recovery (steps are available here) and let us know if it fixes the booting problem in your device. If that doesn't work, contact our support team for further assistance.

Kind regards,

BrianL

NETGEAR Community Team

[fxmail]

I have run the USB recovery and it looked like it booted off the USB key and it powered down itself so I assumed that it has flashed again...powered back up but it is still stuck at booting.  It has been 7 hours and it still says booting......

[fxmail]

I forgot to mention I can ping the IP address but the GUI and RAIDar does not connect.

the Hard drive numbers are on, the activity light is on, and the power light is flashing.  I think it did the flash because it did come up and say USB boot and then USB recovery...and then it powered down itself.

[rexx]

Exactly the same behavior here. With my hard drives (3 as JBOD) attached, i'm stuck at booting forever. Waited for 24 hours and still it says booting. if I leave only one disk attached, I can log on to the admin page and see that the system is healthy and running version 6.4.0. I can also download the logs on RAIDar, but don't know how to interpret them. 

[fxmail]

So yes now tech support is holding me hostage and making me pay for support to fix their issue with their so called "tested" firmware update....What a scam

[BrianL2]

Hi fxmail,

If it powered down the device it means that the recovery is finished. Have you unplugged the USB and normally booted the ReadyNAS to see if it works?

Kind regards,

BrianL
NETGEAR Community Team

[BrianL2]

Hi rexx,

Welcome to the community!

I suggest that you put all the drives back in the same order. Accidentally booting them up in different slot or bays can cause loss of data. I have sent you a PM for further instructions.

Kind regards,

BrianL
NETGEAR Community Team

[fxmail]

I did reboot and it is still stuck in booting.....

They made me pay for support to have my issue fixed....I have no choice unless I throw it away along with my data.

[JennC]

Hello fxmail,

May I have the case number provided by the support expert?

I will check what happened.

Regards,

[AndypigpenDoran]

Any news on this? I have the same issue. I'm guessing that 6.4.0 is not exactly reliable. I have tried the USB boot to recover and still no joy. The box reboots and can be accessed via a browser to the admin page for maybe a couple of minutes after a boot, but then hangs. It responds then to a ping but nothing more.

Next step I guess is a factory reset - fortunately i have not relied on this for backups so I can rebuild it. But this is extremely annoying

[JennC]

Hello AndypigpenDoran,

If you are able to access the admin page sometimes, it may be best you check the steps taken on this discussion:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS/rn104-updated-to-6-4-0-and-possible-solution-to...

Disable disk spin down too if you have it enabled.

Regards,

[StephenB]

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@AndypigpenDoran wrote:

Next step I guess is a factory reset - fortunately i have not relied on this for backups so I can rebuild it. But this is extremely annoying

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You might have run into the btrfs-cleaner problem.  (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS/btrfs-cleaner-frequently-stuck-at-100-CPU-after...

Perhaps AlexPe or Kohdee might have a suggestion.

[AndypigpenDoran]

OK - well snapshot cleanup I guess is possible, but only because I had snapshots enabled. Since I cannot log in via a browser or SSH it has been impossible to know for certain. (I did get an email abou being 70% full which may be related... but 70% full still leaves over 1 TB free).

I basically ended up with no choice but a factory reset - if snapshots were responsible, then that's pretty poor functionality... to kill access to the server just because you are cleaning up old snapshots. I have disabled snapshots after the factory reset and am now copying data back.

[fxmail]

interesting...Are you sure it was not the root volume getting full???  my root volume kept getting full too.  the log rotate function was not rotating the syslog so I had to go in manually and clean it up every 3-4 weeks.  I also have snapshots enabled and when I cleaned those up the unit would become unresponsive for a long time.  The tech says that my hang on booting issue is hardware...  I didnt have it hang on booting until I upgraded the firmware thought so I am not so sure.  He thinks it is a hardware issue...probably because he doesn't know what is wrong.

[fxmail]

I hope I dont have to do a factory reset as I need data on my NAS. 

[AndypigpenDoran]

Like I say - I couldnt even SSH to the box so I couldn;t tell what was or was not full. It will take another 48 hours now to get the data back on it (currently it recons another 80 hours to go before the volume is resynced... hopefully not that long). So it wasn;t an insignificant action to take which is why I am not remotely happy about it.

Whatever issues there may have been - space or otherwise - the system should have at least had enough resources to let me connect and do something other than factory reset. Disappointed....

[rexx]

I booted my RN104 in 'Volume read only mode' http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22891 and lo and behold! all my data is still there. Anyone having this 'Booting forever...' problem should try this. See if you can access your data this way. Then copy to another medium and start considering the option of factory defaulting your NAS and restoring the data. I have 9TB of data sitting there and I don't know where to temporarily put it, but I'm gonna figure that out and proceed this path.

[AndypigpenDoran]

seems like a lot of similar issues with 6.4.0. I guess I should have waited for 6.4.1

[fxmail]

thank you for the tip!  The tech support guy couldnt figure out how to get my data off.

[fxmail]

The unit boots up normally...wow....I suspect it is a firmware issue and not a hardware issue now.  Tech support wants me to pay some more$$$ on top of paying for tech support to replace the hardware!!!  Very disappointed.

[StephenB]

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@fxmail wrote:

The unit boots up normally...wow....I suspect it is a firmware issue and not a hardware issue now.  Tech support wants me to pay some more$$$ on top of paying for tech support to replace the hardware!!!  Very disappointed.

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Did you provide JennC your case number (as she requested)?

[fxmail]

some other moderator is checking but here it is anyways...#25912322

[StephenB]

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@fxmail wrote:

some other moderator is checking but here it is anyways...#25912322

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I don't think they should be charging for 6.4.0 issues.  Just my opinion of course.

[JennC]

Hello fxmail,

I checked the case number you provided and saw all that happened to the conversation, it was escalated, de-escalated, RMA was issued but cancelled.

I suggest you continue with the case so that the support person you are emailing will re-escalate the case if needed.

Regards,