Author Topic: Media disappears after MD start 1004  (Read 5588 times)

OnTarget

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Media disappears after MD start 1004
« on: October 22, 2011, 12:31:22 am »
Hello,

Another weird one. I am only running my media on internal drives on the core/hybrid, no nfs or samba shares. When the core is started the media shows up correctly in the media browser and on all orbiters (web, ipad, iphone, cisco 7970).
When I start my diskless media director the media disappears on everything. It looks like it might be a graphics glitch as where the drives and file names usually show is replaced by a black box. All the media is available through the search functionality.

I was able to fix this previously by taking advantage of a bug that enabled me to restart the core while leaving the MD's on. This bug has now been fixed and the MD's restart with the core so I am stuck without media.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, either a fix or in the short term a way to restart the core while leaving the MD's on. I am time limited on this one as I am having a party on the weekend so need media, if I cant get it fixed or have a workaround by Wednesday I will have to rush an 810 install which I really, really don't want to do.

Cheers,

OnTarget

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2011, 06:35:56 am »
An update.

The core crashed (rare occurrence) so I had to hard reset it. As it was a hard reset the MD's didn't restart and as a result I can see the media correctly on all devices. So time pressure is off as it will do for the party. This is defiantly not a fix, just a very dodgy workaround that I couldn't recommend to anyone due to the risks of data loss etc.

I look forward to finding a solution.

Cheers,

OnTarget

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2011, 05:50:56 am »
WORKAROUND

Rename /usr/pluto/bin/HaltMD.sh to something else. Now the core can be restarted without the MD rebooting enabling media to show up.
Thanks merkur2k for directing me to the file.

I will still search for a fix.

Techstyle

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2011, 07:06:36 am »
This sounds very much like an old issue I used to have where internal drives on the core would unmount once an md was started. If you do not start an md and run for a while with just the core running is your data all viewable?

Check back through some of my posts from at least a couple of years back for a possible solution. I am not at my pc otherwise I would find it for you.

tschak909

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2011, 08:46:46 pm »
We need someone to create a simple DCE device that acts as a watcher. It could possibly be paired with the App server, to watch over several aspects:

* the pluto storage devices mounter
* the DCE router

And if either unexpectedly die, then the system should do a set of heuristics and reboot.

-Thom

OnTarget

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2011, 12:08:45 pm »
The drives don't unmount as all the media is still playable via the search function or saved playlists. You just cant see anything the media browser. If you start the core by itself media is visible. As soon as you start a MD it disappears. If you restart the core without restarting the MD the media shows up again.

tschak909

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2011, 01:28:18 pm »
the storage radar is turning the online devicedata for the different storage devices off. Go into advanced > configuration > devices, select one of the disk drives in the tree and see if it is set online.

-Thom

OnTarget

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #7 on: October 31, 2011, 03:10:48 am »
Thom,

That is defiantly the issue. I reverted my HaltMD.sh restarted. Naturally no media, checked if the drives were online as suggested and they weren't. Enabled them and did a quick reload and had media.

What causes the drives to go offline and is there a fix?

Cheers,

OnTarget

tschak909

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Re: Media disappears after MD start 1004
« Reply #8 on: October 31, 2011, 12:17:36 pm »
The storage radar turns the drives off if it can't access them for one reason or another. This issue needs more investigation, and needs someone with shell scripting and systems level experience.

-Thom