ADMIN WEB PAGES ARE CORRUPTED AND PROVIDE NO ACCESS. The corruption is linked to and moves with the user data.
My data shares are there, but I cannot administer my ReadyNAS NV+ v1 because the admin pages are non-functional.
The admin pages look like a partial load -- lots of blank space, graphics and color mostly missing, lots of recognizable text, even some labeled buttons, but nothing works.
READY FOR THIS?
If I move my drives to another NV+, the corrupted Admin Web pages move with the drives. The corruption is just the same -- some fixed data structure is bad, this is not random. But where is that data structure? I can't get rid of this crap. If I 5-second paper clip reset and reload firmware from non-volatile flash RAM to the hard drives, you'd think that would clean it up. No. So maybe the non-volatile flash is bad. OK, we can do a 4th-flash power button "USB Boot" and load a new flash image from a USB boot drive, then repeat the firmware update and now both FLASH and hard drives have the same, new, perfect firmware. But the admin pages are unusable and unchanged.
How can this be? Those are your data structures, dear Netgear, not mine. Why can't I fix them?
To review: a new machine that passes its memory test and has perfect admin (FrontView) pages gets an old set of drives and can't be administered because the admin pages are corrupted, dead. But all my old data are there and can be accessed (\\192.168.1.149\ours) even if Windows name translation and normal sharing is broken. An old machine that can't be administered because the admin pages are corrupted (but all the old data are OK) gets a new set of empty drives, and the admin pages are fine.
HISTORY: A STORM AND PROGRESSIVE BREAKDOWN -- I was in LA, there was some bad weather back home. But these things are behind a high-isolation, ferroresonant voltage-stabilizing transformer, UPS, etc. Still, you never know. The regular CIFs and AFP shares were gone. I used SSH to rsync some data. I discovered I had samba access to other machines. As I tried to restore CIFs and AFP shares on the Frontview SHARES admin pages, the admin pages broke down -- the shares page first, then the whole FrontView set of pages. And yet, the machine is fine with different drives. And even with broken admin pages and old drives, SSH kept going, the Transmission bit torrent kept going.
What is it I don't understand about the architecture here? I thought it was the FLASH and Linux and Netgear data on one hand, and my folders and my data on the other. But Netgear Webpage data is traveling with my data, and I can't separate the two. grrrrrr. --jerry-va
The firmware is installed from the flash onto the disks. Seeing that you could do a factory default fine with a spare disk (not from your array) the internal flash is fine and USB Boot Recovery is of no help.
An OS Re-install will fix some problems, but it won't fix everything.
I'm certainly pleased and impressed to see help here on a weekend evening!!
Can I use SSH access to get the error logs out? Now they tell me. I promise to record those commands for next time except my Macbook-for-notetaking is dead for the moment (battery).
With corrupted admin pages, 1. I did a 5-sec paperclip reset button move to reload firmware from flash to hard drives. Wouldn't this kill my SSH add-on? Happy to learn something here.
2. I did a 4th flash Power Button re-load flash image from USB thumb drive. This was followed by a repeat of the paperclip reset to reload flash firmware to hard drives. I know this killed my SSH.
3. I have never done a 10-second paperclip factory default reset. My understanding is that a factory default reset renders all the data inaccessible. Happy to get a little smarter here -- will I have to reinitialize the RAID array (8 hours to add one drive . . . ) after a factory default reset??
The error logs have to be in the Linux opsys that moves with the drives, but the drives carry broken admin pages with them, so I can't re-install ssh.
My understanding is that a saved configuration file will restore all added services (ssh, BitTorrent client, . . . ). Absent admin pages, is there anything to be done with them to restore ssh and retrieve /var/log/frontview/error.log ??
New drives in my old box have valid (working) admin pages. No resets of any kind, just change the drives (new blank ones) and the admin pages change back to "good". I am ignorant of what is on flash (and copied to the hard drives for faster booting), what additionally clears with blank drives, and what additionally clears (esp. in the code, not in the security settings) with a 10-sec paperclip Factory Defaults reset. In a big system, the flash loads more stuff from hard drives/DVD/whatever to fully bring up the system. But in this appliance, I thought **everything** would have to originate from the flash memory. I'm ignorant of (misconceiving) something here . . .
It is late, I must knock off for the night. I understand the last-lines-of-log commands (not that I could have figured them out myself) and I'll save them. Again, wonderful to see help in an instant like this. --jerry-va
1. Should reset password to default, but no once enabled SSH is not disabled when you do an OS Re-install.
2. This suggests you may have a full OS partition or other problem with it.
3. A factory default would be 30 seconds on the v1, but before you try that I could have a quick look remotely if you like to see if there is a quick fix.
Let me know your acceptance of http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20932/~/netgear-remote-access-policy, press and hold the POWER button (do NOT press the reset button) only on boot to start the NAS. Every 5 seconds the disk LEDs will flash and a different option will display on the LCD. After about 15 seconds you will see the "Tech Support" option. Release the POWER button at this point. Let me know the 5-digit ID seen on the NAS LCD or in the Info (far right) column in RAIDar.
If the box you moved to never had SSH enabled that could also explain why it doesn't work.
After a factory reset you would Re-Install missing add-ons then restore the config backup. Add-ons may need to be reconfigured.
The flash just has the approx 64MB firmware image on it. It is used early in the boot process (has the initrd and the kernel on it as well as the installation files - you can google kernel and initrd if you want to know more about those and what they do), but the OS itself is installed from the flash onto the 2GB OS partition on the disks. If there is an issue on the OS partition as it is on the disks it will remain when you move with the disks to a different chassis.
I have a similar problem with a Duo V1. I was having a few minor issues and did an OS reinstall. That rather messed up the Frontview interface--it was pretty much there but menu items and buttons all said "unavailable" or something like that. You could still sort of navigate around and do things but it was really awkward. I tried another OS reinstall and Frontview became unusable. I did two RAM tests back to back and they both passed. One of the OS reinstalls must have killed my SSH access. With that gone and while I still had access to all the shares, I backed everything up. I set aside disk 1 and formatted disk 2 in a PC. I put disk 2 in slot 1 and did a factory reset. The Frontview interface was still unusable, looking just like it did after the second OS reinstall. Would a USB boot fix this? How does one do that? Are there other options to get this functioning again?
OK. I followed the instructions regarding making the USB image from here (http://home.bott.ca/webserver/?p=159) using the Mac OSX dd method. It appeaers to have completed fine as I saw the following in the Terminal:
122761+0 records in 122761+0 records out 62853632 bytes transferred in 78.516400 secs (800516 bytes/sec)
I powered down, plugged in the USB stick, and held down the power button until after four light flashes. After a while, the Duo is blinking the disk 1 light one per second for five seconds and for the sixth second, all four lights blink three times. Is the USB recovery finished? The article mentioned completion after "[power, drive, and activity lights will be off, fan will be off]" but that seems to refer to an NV+ with an LCD.
I pulled the plug (pressing the power button would not power it down) and it started up and I have the interface back. Should I still do either the factory reset or OS reinstall? If so, which is preferred? Thanks a bunch!
