Re: Filesystem synchronization problem

[Marco Gerards]

soeren.d.schulze@gmx.de writes:

> I am having a problem with my ext2 filesystem. Sometimes at shutdown it
> seems not to be unmounted correctly. After printing all the shutdown
> messages, the system hangs then for some seconds. At the next startup, fsck
> tells wants me to repair the filesystem manually i.e. it is pretty broken.

This is a problem I have seen before, and many others.  It would be
nice if we could fix this problem.

> I did some research on the problem: On some system runs the explicit "sync"
> call fails (it does not react and I have to kill it with ^C). When i try to
> shut down (halt or reboot) after, the problem with the filesystem appears.
> So it must be a sync problem.

Can you set up a second filesystem and try to sync only that one (I am
not sure how to do that).  When sync hangs, can you check what makes
it hang and what is going on in ext2fs?

You can do this by attaching gdb to ext2fs.  Make sure you have
debugging symbols.  I'd like to see at least a backtrace of every
thread and all other stuff that might seem useful.

Can you do that?

> Modifying data on a running but unsyncable FS has completely destroyed some
> installations of mine.

We talked on IRC about this, do you only get the problem with
`reboot'?

[...]

> Currently I am running a Debian GNU/Hurd installation via crosshurd but the
> problem also appeared with installations from the ISOs that were destroyed
> by it ...

I don't think the installation method is relevant.

--
Marco