Lost Movie Library Links

    My system consists of Libreelec (11.0.6) on a Raspberry Pi 3B (v1.2), equipped with a Seagate 1TB USB SSD (formatted ntfs). The SSD is powered by a separately powered USB. I have this system mounted in a box, and it travels with me to a remote camping location. System has worked flawlessly for several years. Today I noted that movies (stored on the SSD) are no longer accessible. When a movie is selected, the system indicates 'not available' and offers to remove the selection from the library. The RPi/Libreelec system seems to be fully functional with the exception of library links.

    Note: My system was powered up during a recent thunderstorm in which our residence lost power momentarily. The system was plugged into surge protection, but I fear something may have been corrupted.

    The Seagate drive is not recognized by Libreelec. I have attempted to access the drive through 'Video > File > Add Videos > Browse > Root File System > Media', but no HDD is recognized. I have also attempted to access the drive through 'Settings > File Manager > Add Source > Browse > Root > Media' also with no HDD recognized.

    I have changed the powered USB hub. HDD not recognized.

    I disconnected the Seagate drive and plugged a 32GB Memory Stick into the powered USB hub. The Memory Stick is immediately recognized by Libreelec.

    I connected the Seagate drive to my Linux Mint desktop. The drive is recognized and can be mounted. Files appear to be intact.

    So,

    • As the drive is recognized and mounted on my desktop, drive connections are OK,
    • As the 32GB Memory Stick is recognized by Libreelec immediately, the powered USB hub seems to be OK,
    • This leaves corruption of the disk or perhaps some element of the Libreelec software.

    Note: Primary copies of movies, videos, etc reside on my media center. That is, rather easily retrieved if necessary. So, I'm not completely opposed to formatting the disk (e.g., ext4) and rebuilding the library. But, if there is a better way to resolve this, I'm all ears.

    Thanks in advance for recommendations,

    Mike952

    Connect the drive to a Windows machine and run chkdsk.exe to check and clear any 'dirty' state from the NTFS filesystem. Linux (in LE11) has no way to do this itself and the drive will not mount (to prevent risk of damage) until the state is clear. NB: If I've guessed correctly the dmesg log should show the problem fairly clearly.

    Quote from Mike952

    Note: Primary copies of movies, videos, etc reside on my media center. That is, rather easily retrieved if necessary. So, I'm not completely opposed to formatting the disk (e.g., ext4) and rebuilding the library. But, if there is a better way to resolve this, I'm all ears

    HI, Changing to ext4 would take some time, but I think it worth it. No more issue with NTFS under Linux...

    RPi images intentionally use an LTS kernel (currently Linux 6.18) but the rest of our codebase is now using 7.0+ which includes the reworked in-kernel NTFS drivers; and importantly the fsck.ntfs tools that allow filesystem fixing for most problems to be handled during boot, the same as EXT4. At some point the RPi kernel will bump to a newer LTS that also includes those tools, so in the long-term most of the historic challenges we've seen with NTFS should go away.

    Thanks chewitt,

    Crisis averted. Switched to Windows. Had to run chkdsk a couple of times. Then voila!, my drive was visible to Libreelec once again. To my delight, all library connectivity appears to have been reestablished. And, thanks for the additional information in your last post re: repair of EXT4 vs NTFS in Linux.

    Much appreciated,

    Mike952

    OK. Spoke too soon. After a couple of hours, I return to LibreELEC and same situation - Drive not recognized by LibreELEC. Returned to Windows. Ran chkdsk. Again seemed to find several problems. Reconnected to LibreELEC, and once again recognized.

    I'm beginning to think this is not due to a power surge, rather due to a heating problem or a failing HDD. I'll monitor for a few days.

    Stand by,

    Mike952