Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753350Ab0L1CyJ (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:54:09 -0500 Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:39518 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753055Ab0L1CyH (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:54:07 -0500 Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:53:43 -0500 From: "Ted Ts'o" To: Con Kolivas Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, adilger.kernel@dilger.ca, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, linux-usb@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Regular ext4 error warning with HD in USB dock Message-ID: <20101228025343.GD10149@thunk.org> Mail-Followup-To: Ted Ts'o , Con Kolivas , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, adilger.kernel@dilger.ca, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, linux-usb@vger.kernel.org References: <201012280953.46149.kernel@kolivas.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <201012280953.46149.kernel@kolivas.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2286 Lines: 47 On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 09:53:45AM +1100, Con Kolivas wrote: > > Since I moved my internal HD into a USB dock externally and mount the ext4 > filesystem on it, I regularly get the following errors after it has been > mounted for a while (see timecode). It doesn't seem to matter which recent > kernel I use. > > [1048401.773270] EXT4-fs (sde8): mounted filesystem with writeback data mode. > Opts: (null) > [1048702.736011] EXT4-fs (sde8): error count: 3 > [1048702.736016] EXT4-fs (sde8): initial error at 1289053677: > ext4_journal_start_sb:251 > [1048702.736018] EXT4-fs (sde8): last error at 1289080948: ext4_put_super:719 That's actually not an error. It's a report which is generated every 24 hours, indicating that there has been 3 errors since the last time the error count has been cleared, with the first error taking place at Sat Nov 6 10:27:57 2010 (US/Eastern) in the function ext4_journal_start_sb(), at line 251, and the most recent error taking place at Sat Nov 6 18:02:28 2010 (US/Eastern), in the function ext4_put_super() at line 719. This is a new feature which was added in 2.6.36. This information (which is stored in the ext4 superblock) gets cleared by e2fsck version 1.41.13 or newer (1.41.14 is the most recently released version). If you are using an older version of e2fsck, this information won't get cleared, which is not a disaster, although it could potentially get annoying. The solution is to simply to upgrade to the newest version of e2fsprogs if you are using the 2.6.36 or newer kernel. The idea behind this feature is to make sure that if there was a file system corruption detected, it wouldn't be lost due to log files getting overflowed. It's also helpful when users report problems to distribution support lines, since it makes it more likely support personnel will be able to determine that there has been some file system corrutpion issues, perhaps caused by hardware problems, or some other cause, including kernel bugs. Hope this helps explain what you're seeing! - Ted -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/