ext HDs not mounted after 11.01 update

    One interesting point in the ntfs-3g docs though is that it mounted the filesystem as read-only when it was dirty or had not too severe errors whereas the ntfs3 kernel driver completely refuses to mount the filesystem in that case.

    This could mean users with problems (or problematic behavior / setups) would not have noticed that they had issues in the past whereas they notice the issues now.

    With LE10 and before the issues would only show up when trying to write to the drive with LE (eg via SMB), but as lots of those users seem to prefer to write media from their Windows boxes, and use LE only to read the media files, that rarely happened.

    so long,

    Hias

    It puzzles me that after the 11.0 upgrade and drive failures the drives were repaired and worked without issues until the next update to 11.01 produced the same exact errors. I have to conclude something during the update process is suspect.

    @Reddirt have you managed to solve the problem or found a workaround? I'm facing the same problem since today, as I've updated from LE 11 stable to latest nighltly (using x86 generic) and got the same problem as you:

    LibreELEC udevil[710]: mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1-usb-Seagate_BUP_Slim failed: Invalid argument

    LibreELEC udevil[704]: mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1-usb-Seagate_BUP_Slim failed: No such device

    Forgot to mention that scanning the drive under Windows did not solve the problem (no issues were found). Also, there seems to be nothing in the log suggesting why the drive cannot mount, only:

    LibreELEC kernel: ntfs3: sdb1: failed to replay log file. Can't mount rw!

    Full log uploaded HERE

    A suggestion that a new driver incorporated in the Kodi build might be the culprit behind the issues. Since the last update of LE I have noticed it takes much longer to mount my external drives once powered up. I estimate a good 15 seconds or more which is a lifetime in processing terms. As to your issues you may need to run chkdsk in Win to repair your drive(s). Lots of info on chkdsk usage with a quick online search. I know this a pain but once you repair your drives LE works great. The LE team will figure out the problem eventually so patience is golden here and a donation to the cause always helps. ;)

    I've figured it out. I'll do a quick write up here, as this was not so quite obvious.

    There was nothing in the log, like the most common thing with drive being in dirty state. Chkdsk did not reveal any disk errors. The drive just simply would not mount. The problem was with a folder created by LG tv that holds cache like thumbnails, video settings, progress etc. But simply removing this folder was not enough. I had to run chkdsk on it (which still did not found any errors on the drive). Only then the drive started to mount in LE. Weird, right?

    So its definitely something with LE build, since I used to swap the drive between TV and PC with no problems before.

    Glad you got it working. I had a similar experience after running chkdsk on my drives with it reporting no errors then mounting in LE with no issues. Take the win and call it good. 8)

    Hi,

    I've exactly the same problem since v11.01.

    I was using LibreElec Matrix with a Raspberry Pi 4 without problems but since V11.x some hard disk problem arrived.

    3 times I have to connect my hasrd drive (Maxtor 4 Tb) on a Windows computer then perform a chkdsk /Fix.

    Each time the hard drive after restarted on LibreElec.

    But from yesterday It doesn't work anymore in LibreElec I have the same message in logs as this :

    Quote from ebol

    @Reddirt have you managed to solve the problem or found a workaround? I'm facing the same problem since today, as I've updated from LE 11 stable to latest nighltly (using x86 generic) and got the same problem as you:

    LibreELEC udevil[710]: mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1-usb-Seagate_BUP_Slim failed: Invalid argument

    LibreELEC udevil[704]: mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1-usb-Seagate_BUP_Slim failed: No such device

    Except mine is a Maxtor, not a Seagate.

    When I connect my hard disk on Woindows it see no problem and it work great.

    This is definitely a problem with LibreElec v11.x.

    Is there a way to downgrade to LibreElec Matrix from LibreElec v11.x ?

    Still no problems with any of my 27 NTFS-disks.

    Pi4 2GB SSD-boot & 2x4TB (8TB)

    Pi4 2GB SSD-boot & 2x8TB+3x10TB (46TB)

    Pi4 4GB SSD-boot & 2x2x6TB (24TB)

    Pi4 8GB SSD-boot & 2x8x4TB (64TB)

    2 of my Pi's are on LE11 nightlies & the other 2 on LE12.

    Edited once, last by MatteN (June 19, 2023 at 10:45 AM).

    Quote from MatteN

    Still no problems with any of my 22 NTFS-disks. 2 of my Pi's are on LE11 nightlies & the other 2 on LE12.

    I remember one think: before the problems arrive, I switched LibreElec update to automatic. I was in manual update before this.

    Could it be a problem occuring when autoupdate is activated (so after performing automatically an update) ?

    Quote from fonzy44

    I remember one think: before the problems arrive, I switched LibreElec update to automatic. I was in manual update before this.

    Could it be a problem occuring when autoupdate is activated (so after performing automatically an update) ?

    I am always on latest nightly.

    Thread

    external HDD not detected/mounting v10.95.1 on PI3

    hi there. just updating from matrix 19.4 to nexus (libreleec 10.95.1) in my PI3, installation was done tow ways, forts kjust updatont from matrix, next was a clean install using USB-SD creator and new formatted 16gb sd card.

    nothing else was installed after, just basic config to start using kodi, but i noticed my external hdd does not appear anywhere, nothing in the dev/media folder, nothing shown in the system information/storage. (by the other hand usb any pendrive is detected correctly)

    Hdd…
    jordixPI3
    March 1, 2023 at 7:04 PM

    I'm crosslinking to this thread as it seems to deal with similar issues.

    I've not been able to find a rock solid solution as of yet. As I understand it the issue showed up with change of drivers in the core Kodi software last update. I had another drive fail to mount well after the last update. Chkdsk did find an error and I lost an entire folder. I ran the chkdsk program and rebuilt the lost folder but clueless as to cause. Sometimes sh** just happens. I have faith the devs will solve this. A donation to the cause is the best fix you and I can offer.

    Just chiming in to say my Pi4 running LE 11.01 had frozen while I was away for a few days. After multiple full power-down reboots, it totally lost the ability to mount two external USB HDDs formatted with NTFS. I was lazy and didn't look at the boot logs, but I disconnected the HDDs from the Pi, mounted them on my Win 10 laptop, did a full chkdsk repair (found many little problems) and de-frag, then re-attached them to the Pi. All is well again and they mount and are accessible as normal.

    It seems to be that if there is a general system crash, the HDD filesystem can be left in a 'dirty' state that can't be resolved by the ntfs3 driver after re-booting. Only the Windows native NTFS driver can fix all the issues.

    Edited 2 times, last by sunny (July 27, 2023 at 2:36 AM).

    Sounds about right for NTFS. My plan is to ditch NTFS altogether for my mass storage and replace with ext4. I've had several strange file issues with Linux based software trying to decipher Bill Gates spaghetti file systems. From what I gather native filesystem's will play together much better. We'll see.

    I have been mounting NTFS partitions on Raspberry Pi boxen running OpenElec, LibreElec and Raspbian (now Raspberry OS). And yes, an NTFS partition that has not been unmounted cleanly often refuses to mount, and in several cased I have been forced to use Windows to fix it. All that has been sad about that in previous posts in this thread is absolutely true.

    BUT... Right now I'm seeing things that I have not seen before migrating to LE11. Specifically, I've got an NTFS partition that will mount perfectly on my Ubuntu Linux laptop (Dell Inspiron) without any complaints, but on the RPi4 running LE11.0.3 it refuses to mount, and dmesg tells me that

    1409.985335] ntfs3: sda2: volume is dirty and "force" flag is not set!

    Is LE11 somehow more critical in deciding what is and is not a sufficiently "dirty" state to refuse mounting?

    NTFS on *ix has always been somewhat problematic, and I get that. But right now, as of LE11, I'm looking at a situation where I need to connect my external Kodi HD to a Windows box to "repair" the file system after even the slightest hiccup!

    If converting an almost full 8TB Seagate Storage + SMR drive to ext4 without having a spare 8TB to park the files while the file system is being modified I'd already have done that, but at present I just don't have that option.

    So yeah, it's a bit of a pain... To a large extent this renders USB NTFS disks on LE unusable.

    PS: It also doesn't help that LE and Kodi currently have no option to cleanly umount USB harddisks with NTFS partitions. At this point in time you unplug an NTFS HD without first shutting down LE and you can't use it again before you've connected it to a Windows box. The fsck that comes with LE (I assume part of Busybox) is limited, especially in its ability to kick NTFS back in shape.

    Edited 2 times, last by frankvw: Merged a post created by frankvw into this post. (October 29, 2023 at 8:20 AM).

    LE10 and earlier use NTFS-3G via FUSE to mount NTFS drives. LE11 switched to new(er) in-kernel drivers so you'll see a significant increase in file read/write performance. However the in-kernel drivers appear to be a little more enthusiastic about flagging issues; hence the change in behaviour that users are seeing.

    LE normally does fsck before mounting drives but there is no fsck.ntfs utility to do this (ext2/3/4 etc. use /usr/sbin/e2fsck). In the past there was an fsck tool from NTFS-3G and I'm wondering if we might need to restore the package; not to switch back to the older driver, but to build and pick the fsck tool to the image.

    Kodi allows drives to be selected and unmounted in the file browser, but otherwise the GUI doesn't have an easily accessed option and you'd need to create an unmount-all script and then map the script to a custom remote keymap.

    Quote from chewitt

    LE normally does fsck before mounting drives but there is no fsck.ntfs utility to do this (ext2/3/4 etc. use /usr/sbin/e2fsck). In the past there was an fsck tool from NTFS-3G and I'm wondering if we might need to restore the package; not to switch back to the older driver, but to build and pick the fsck tool to the image.

    I would be a great fan of that idea! Right now I'm seriously considering pulling a hat out of a rabbit somewhow to turn my NTFS into ext4 partitions, since every time there's the slightest hiccup with a USB drive (connector noise, the wife unplugging the wrong wall wart, anything like that) I can't just re-plug and re-mount; I've got to take the USB disk to the only Windows box we have in the house (my wife's laptop) and it's becoming a real problem.

    So yeah, this sounds great! If it's technically feasible without devs having to bend themselves over backwards into a pretzel knot, of course. :)