Nothing but trouble after upgrading to 6.5.1 from 6.4.2

[mikeb-phx]

I recently upgraded firmware on my RN204 from 6.4.2 to 6.5.1 and started seeing problems immediately.  I am not using any fancy features or apps; just straightforward windows (CIFS/SMB) type shares.  Under 6.4.2 no problems whatsoever.  I have some music and video files shared and when played (with several different apps like VLC, Windows Media Player, etc) the playback stops after a few minutes (random timings, but typically within 10-15 of playback).  I tried downgrade to 6.5.0 but no help.  There is something wrong with the 6.5.x firmware, and I would be happy to return to 6.4.2 but alas the documentation says that not doable.  Please help 

[mdgm-ntgr]

Please send in your logs (see the Sending Logs link in my sig)

[mikeb-phx]

[logs sent per instructions]

[mdgm-ntgr]

Thanks.

I can see as you mentioned that you downgraded back to 6.4.2 then upgraded to 6.5.0 again.

I guess you moved your disks across to this NAS a while back from another ReadyNAS?

I can also see you've got SSH enabled and have installed some stuff using that.

Not much else stands out to me from looking at the logs.

[mikeb-phx]

I also have an RN102, and the two drives I had in it I moved to the RN204 but that was some time ago and had no problems. 

I had SSH on a long time ago when I was copying via command line to external USB drive (the GUI copy was taking long time and I wanted to see if command line was faster).  Not sure what you see as being installed via SSH

anyway, I went from a rock solid stable device under 6.4.2 to a flaky device under 6.5.x (and my RN102 is upgraded to 6.5.1 as well but I haven't really done anything with it to see if the problem occuring on it)

what are the risks of going back to 6.4.2 permanently by either:

* leaving drives in and downlevel

* or take drives out and substitute spare drives to downlevel, then put back the original

I'm really at a spot where I have one possibly two devices that no longer work reliably and the only dfferece is the update to 6.5.1

[Sandshark]

Since the booted OS is on the drives, downgrading the NAS with a spare and then returning the drives with the updated OS is not an option.

If you plan to downgrade, make sure your backup is up to date.  There is a good chance you will run into issues and have to factory default and restore that backup.

[mdgm-ntgr]

Do you have a backup of your data?

[mikeb-phx]

I'm did make a complete fresh backup to an external USB 3.0 drive that is formatted to ext4.  I used the RN Backup feature.  I'm thinking through my next steps as factory reset followed by restore, or experiment using my older RN102, or wait awhile to see if a fix comes along.  I'm seeing other comments about 6.5.1 along the lines of dropping from network, not showing up on network, etc.  I have run continous pings against the  NAS using two other computers and every few minutes I'll see Request time out on both at same time.  Typically it's one time out but I've seen it go as high as 7 consecutive time outs.  All devices on the same gig switch and the pings are running with no load on the NAS.

I do have a questio about factory reset.  Does it return the device to the firmware code level that was on the device out of the box, or does it just clear out config settings but remains at the current firmware level (i.e. 6.5.1) ?

[mdgm-ntgr]

When you update the firmware the firmware on the flash is updated as well as the firmware on the disks. So when you do a factory reset now it will use 6.5.1. If it went back to the firmware it had out of the box you wouldn't be able to get any of the benefits from doing a clean install on new firmware.

A factory reset wipes the disks, so all data, settings, everything on the disks is destroyed. It partitions the disks, sets up the RAID, installs a clean copy of the OS, creates a new data volume etc.

[mikeb-phx]

This thread originated due to problems following updating firmware on my RN204 from 6.4.2 to 6.5.1

I also have a RN102 that was updated to 6.5.1, and the past few nights I have been seeing it misbehave in similar manner

I have two PCs and the two NAS on the same Gig switch.  The PCs are running continuous pings to both NAS (as well as both PCs ping each other).  Majority of the time the pings come back clean and quick.  However, every few minutes pings to one of the NAS will get dropped up to 8 times in a row and both PCs notice.  Both NAS are showing this dropped packet misbehavior.  I have replaced cables, changed addressing from DHCP to static, turned off pretty much all NAS services like DLNA, and tried a different make/model of gig switch, and the dropped pings continue.

If I had to wager, I would say something is different in the network stack of the 6.5+ OS and the user's view of the NAS working corrrectly depends on what network function or service being used and how sensitive it is to lost packets and temporary lost connectivity.  I tried the betas for the RN102 and they did not help.

Since my RN102 not being used at the moment, I am going to:

Take out one its drives

Downlevel firmware to 6.4.2

Factory reset

Take out the drive and wipe/zero both of the drives in my PC using WD drive software

Put one drive in and maybe repeat 6.4.2 FW load and factory reset (maybe this is overkill)

Restore some files to it and check if it behaves

If this works then I'll tackle my RN204

[Sandshark]

Please report back.  I have not taken the plunge to 6.5.x and your findings will help me decide if it is finally time to do so.  Right now, I',m leaning away from it.

While you are experimenting, if you have the time, you could do us all a favor and check out the betas as well.

[StephenB]

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@mikeb-phx wrote:

However, every few minutes pings to one of the NAS will get dropped up to 8 times in a row and both PCs notice.  Both NAS are showing this dropped packet misbehavior. 

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I just started a ping test to my RN202 (running 6.5.2-500).  I'll report back, and then do a similar test to my RN102 (6.6.0-T117).

[mikeb-phx]

I am methodically working my way back to 6.4.2 on my two NAS.  I so far have RN102 back to 6.4.2 and noticed something really weird when I ran some more ping tests.

Setup:

Windows / Linux Mint dual boot PC (hasn't shown to make any difference but I prefer Windows' format of ping)

ZyZel 5-port gigabit switch and a different off-brand 8-port gigabit switch (both have been reliable over past two years and swapping either one into the mix hasn't made a difference)

Netgear WNDR4300 wireless router (used this as a non-NAS device to ping)

RN102 @ 6.4.2 (backleveled from Beta 6.6.0)

RN204 @ 6.5.1

The cabling arrangement is Router, then the switch connects to Router, then the PC and two NAS connect to the switch

I set up thre ping windows on the PC - one going to each of the two NAS and the thrid going to the Router on the other side of the switch.  I walked away for a few hours and when returned I stopped all three pings to check the summary.  Pinging to the Router had 0 (zero) dropped packets.  Pinging to the RN102 had 14% dropped packets, and to the RN204 16% dropped packets.

I was really hoping the RN102 would have behaved better after downlevel.  So I restarted all three pings and sat and watched and noticed that after about 5 minutes pings to both NAS were getting dropped at the same time and for the same or nearly the same amount of drops, and about every 4-5 minutes after both would drop packets at the same time and anywhere from 1 to 12 dropped packets in parallel.   Most of the times it would be a solid 7 or 8 dropped packets at the same time.  Meanwhile, pings to the Router no problem/no drops.  It's almost like the two NAS were fighting each other network-wise.

I re-booted both NAS and resterted the pings but no improvement.

Then for the heck of it, I unplugged the RN204 from the switch and restarted pings to just the RN102 and the Router and let it go all night.  This morning after several hours and approx 60,000 pings to each device, the RN102 had ZERO packet loss and the Router had 1 dropped packet.

[mikeb-phx]

I'm going to explore this later in the week, but I wonder if I have a failing eth1 port (port on top of the RN204).  I have been using that port since I've had this NAS.  After getting a lot of dropped packets, I decided to see if the eth0 (bottom port) behaved any different.  I still had lost pings but much smaller number and more importantly not in concentrated groups (i.e. with eth1 I would get batches of 7-8 lost pings in a row every few minutes and the eth0 would lose one ping much further apart).  Once I get my RN204 back to where I started I'll dig into this more.

[StephenB]

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StephenB wrote: 

I just started a ping test to my RN202 (running 6.5.2-500).  I'll report back, and then do a similar test to my RN102 (6.6.0-T117).

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I'm not seeing this on either NAS.

[mikeb-phx]

It's been awhile since I last posted, was tied up with work travel.  Anyway I reverted my firmware back to 6.4.2 on both my RN204 and RN102 and for several weeks not having having problems and back to working like they were prior to 6.5.1 upgrade that introduced a lot of problems for me.  I went through a laborious process to revert and made sure I had good backups.  In the future I will likely test upgrades on my RN102 first before atempting in the RN204, and will like wait for an upgrade well past 6.5.1

[mdgm-ntgr]

We have now released 6.5.2 and our 6.6.0 update has now entered the Release Candidate stage.