Posts by LybsterKodi

A little more information - I took the HDD back to the Pi and its refusing to recognise it. Tried a different cable - still not recognised, tried one of the USB2 ports - still no joy.

Configuration:

LibreElec 20/08/2022 nightly, Amber skin loaded but not used, Shadertoy visualisation loaded, TVheadend server & client installed and running

RPi4B 4GB, 128GB SSD (for boot etc), 6TB Seagate Backup Hub NTFS formatted (films etc) with Haupage tuner & wifi keyboard dongle plugged in, ethernet,

I have posted about HDD corruption before but now I've lost a complete folder. I have three top level folders on the 6TB HDD - Films, MVids, Records. In Films I have folders A to Z with sub folders if there's a series (eg 'Allo 'Allo). This morning checking something I found I've lost the entire contents of Films/A. The folder is still there but there's nothing in it. Fortunately I do have backup but its more than a little disturbing.

The RPi4 has been running since 20/8 but has been rebooted via the menu on occasions. I have pulled the HDD from the Pi and checked it out on Windows since I have better diagnostic tools there and can find nothing wrong apart from the fact that stuff has gone missing.

Does anyone have a suggestion (or an explanation) that does not involve reformatting to Ext4 since that is not a viable option.

Joe

"a FS gets corrupt when a disk gets unplugged or a power cut, while the FS/disk is in use.

and "being mounted" translates to being "in use", here."

WOW! To my Windows centric eyes that seems like a major design flaw.

Hias

"Or just use the "remove media" option from the context menu in the video files view."

I knew it was there but assumed that I'd need to recreate the source and re-scan to the database. I've obviously misinterpreted as I did with EXPORT for videos.

This reply because its the only way I know to mark the thread as resolved

Thanks - I'll go and zap some files.

Hias

Thanks for that. The 6TB HDD did have an extra partition on it (can't remember how it was formatted) but it was rapidly removed with Mini Tool Partition Manager and the whole thing formatted to NTFS.

Your's and Joe's comments pretty much destroy my theory. I'll just have to hope it doesn't recur.

"your thought/theory are unlikely"

Agreed, but it is the best fit I have to the facts I know

"against the "boot theory" and for the "dear Pi don't boot my external drive":

usually LE is configured where to boot from during LE installation.

with the UUID's form the disk what is attached during installation."

OK, but all I could find while searching was you can toggle between SD card & USB device as the first one to look at. What I have no idea about and why I thought disabling boot from specified disks is what happens if LibreElec starts its boot from SSD and then tries to spin up the HDD and fails? I know the Pi will close down but I have no idea what else its doing.

"mostly a filesystem gets corrupt when the drive is disconnected while being in use/mounted (e.g. hard power cut)."

We do get the occasional power cut or voltage fluctuation in the Highlands (not as many as I expected when we moved up here though).

The RPi4 is connected to a 128GB SSD for boot and a 6TB HDD for source (videos, records). The 6TB HDD should not be written to unless I carry out a media export and I do not recall ever seeing a disk / memory stick corrupted simply by unplugging unless it had been written to and items not flushed to disk.

OK my experience is primarily Windows based so Linux / LibreElec may be different.

Running 20/08/2022 nightly on RPi4, using Local information only with .nfo and .jpg files for each video

I've turned off Download actors thumbnails & Extract thumbnails from video files.

However, when I backed up and copied the tar over to my Windows PC I have c160MB of thumbnails.

1. Is this a LibreElec or a Kodi question

2. How do I stop the thumbnails being produced

3. Am I safe to just delete storage\.kodi\userdata\Thumbnails\

I'm still trying to understand why my 6TB USB HDD became corrupted twice. I think the first time was because I hadn't powered up the drive before turning the Pi on. I have a theory that the second time could have been caused by the Pi trying to boot from the 6TB HDD rather than the 128GB SSD even though the 6TB drive was powered up.

I don't think its going to be possible (tried googling but haven't found anything to support the idea) but I'd like to be able to say to the Pi - "you can boot from the SSD but not the HDD" by USB port, disk name or anything. Is there a way?

Quote from JoeAverage

okay, next time please mention in your questions that your're not really interesting in answers, safes some time here ...

The question was

"What does anyone here think? Likely or not?".

If you are interested in answering that I'm interested.

Quote from tokul

If you are looking for cross platform compatibility, use NTFS. Both NTFS and exFAT are not native filesystems for Linux and NTFS implementation is older and more mature.

Turn off hibernation in disk settings. If disks shutdowns on its own while being mounted, it can only cause mess. Disk should be stopped by OS and not other way. If your storage thinks that it is smarter than OS, you have to use synchronous file system without journal on it.

Thanks.

"Filesystem performance is less critical than device performance."

fully agree with that

Quote from JoeAverage

I'm convinced the "somebody" doesn't "attack original poster", but "attacks" the OPs wrong attitude what prevents to find the answer for his question(s) himself.

please learn to read the differences in the sentences !

Interesting. I hadn't realised that asking questions here was forbidden. After all if I'm to find out the answer for myself I shouldn't be asking anyone. I was also unaware that you were watching and discounted my efforts googling for information and trying physical tests to see if I could recreate the problem.

As a matter of interest. Did you look at the Wikipedia article, and if so how would it have helped answer my question? I ask because I'm always interested in learning - even at 70.

Quote from chewitt

The expense is worth it

I would have agreed with you totally whilst I was still working and running a small IT Department. As a pensioner who had a large percentage of his savings disintegrated by the Credit Crunch my attitude has changed a bit <G>

Quote from JoeAverage

there exists a comparison of filesystems in wikipedia, search for it

I did a lot of web searching before I posted here. The vast majority do a bit of a pro & con list with zero evidence to support anything. Wikipedia have a very detailed entry if I was interested in technical specs. I'm not.

I can now confirm the problem was the cable - new Cat6 cable and no packet loss.

"1) Update the RPi4 bootloader (there where quit a few things USB related in the changelogs)"

LibreElec tells me bootloader & t'other one (can't remember the name) are both up to date and I believe it

"2) Disable Wifi and Bluetooth if you are not using them"

Does never enabling them count <G> - never enable Bluetooth and always disable WiFi

"3) If the Seagate is FAT32 or NTFS that might cause the corruption because those filesystem aren't playing nice with Linux.You might consider switching to EXT4 (at least to test if corruption occur with that too)."

I've posted separately about this. Ext4 isn't really a possibility - simply from a viewpoint of backing up and copying / moving files using Windows (I'll see what the speed is like over the network now with the Cat6 cable). I've been running NTFS since 2018 on the Pi3s and that Seagate is OK. My current theory is the first time I had a duff socket in the extension lead which meant LibreElec/Pi4 tried to power the 6TB HDD, ignored the SSD with LibreElec on it and went to try and reformat the HDD but couldn't power it. The second time is baffling me but might have been flipping the power switches in the wrong order.

Pretty much all the stuff I can find on the web says use ExFat not NTFS for USB drives but no evidence to support the opinion.

Thanks - to answer your comments / questions

"Windows does not hibernate external drives."

True, however, Seagate provide a utility so you can tell the HDD to go to sleep after inactivity - I've set it to 15 minutes so having left it to copy 4TB overnight it was sleeping when I came back, turned the PC off and disconnected.

"Unplugging the drive during write operations."

Windows always tell it to eject or close PC down. RPi4 power off machine, but it shouldn't really be writing to the disk anyway - just reading videos.

"Insufficient power for write operations."

I'm pretty sure this was the first cause - power block with duff socket.That was fixed but I suppose its possible that the Pi was overloaded, couldn't read the OS from SSD and tried to create a new install on the HDD.

"Vibration"

Being a brit a tumbler is a glass (one of those things you drink out of) so might have trouble balancing the HDD on it

"Disk failure"

I'm about 23% through a full scann (HDDScan) right now - no bad sectors yet.

"Does it corrupt after being remove from Windows, from libreelec,

or during operation on one of the systems?"

Good question - I only found it (both times) when I plugged back into my Windows PC - massive index corruption both times.

"How does corruption show up in the kernel log? (dmesg)"

No idea - the SSD where I presume it would be stored has been flashed several times since it happened.

"PS: Why does the forum censor the word "

Wish I knew - it also censors f00d

My PS: any views on ExFAT vs NTFS?

I'm hopefully onto my last problem area. The 6TB I'll be using on the RPi4 has been corrupted twice and I'm trying to find out why. I found this (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linu…ved-4175536517/) thread which indicates that when Linux mounts a hibernated disk this can cause corruption. I've set my disk to go to sleep after 15 minutes inactivity so its entirely possible that it was that state when I took it off the Windows PC and connected onto the Pi.

What does anyone here think? Likely or not?

The 6TB disk is formatted to NTFS, moving to Ext4 is not a viable proposition, but I could move to ExFAT if people think that would be more stable.

"Well,i never thought about old cables."

Neither did I to my shame. Its a Seagate powered backup hub - 6TB HDD. LibreElec will live on a 128GB SSD.

I did run across something which said that the Pi can only deliver 1.2A over all the USB ports, no idea how accurate that is but since the Seagate comes with two USB ports I'll be popping the keyboard dongle and the Haupage in there.

I won't know for sure until I receive a cable from Amazon but I think I've sussed it. I deserve to be shot at dawn for such a stupid mistake. Most of my equipment is mature so Cat5 cable is fine but with the RPi4 and the powerline adapter both being gigabit there was data loss. Today I bunged a 5 port 10/100 hub in between the powerline adapter and the Pi4 and things work properly.

Hopefully the only problem I have left to solve is why its trashing the hard drive.

Quote from Pretoriano

Well,another thing i would try is updating the RPi4 bootloader to the latest version (if it's not already the latest one) and test again .

Good guess - did it ages ago. Fortunately I had the sense to "dismantle" my RPi3s carefully so I'm now back to a running system.

I'll mark this thread as resolved and maybe try again in a few months, or when the price of a Pi comes down.

Thanks for trying to sort me out.

I'm using SSD as well and I know its speed is good since I tested it just after its arrival.

Thanks to your suggesting a different OS I'm coming to the conclusion that its the RPi4. On wireless (once I connected to my private network rather than the public bit I share) pings were 0% lost. Went back to wired and it loaded amazon.co.uk but then speedtest.net disconnected. Transfering multi GB files over wireless is a bit of a none starter - it can be done but....

I've been trying since last October to get this off the ground. First waiting for LibreElec to implement features I needed now this. I think I'll resurrect my Pi3Bs - just watch them decide not to work now.