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SS4200-e hangs frequently with Firmware 1.1.11.32736

idata
Employee
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Hello

I upgraded my SS4200-e to the latest version 1.1.11.32736. However since then it stops responding very often, meaning 1-2 times per day.

When the system stops responding we can not access shares, the Web User Interface or connect with SSH to a command prompt. However the system still performes rebuilds of the RAID set and even sends out emails confirming the that rebuild has been completed. So I assume there are only some deams that hang. This sound a little bit like the issue AA903, they had in Release 1.06, but refering to intels web site this should be fixed with 1.08.

Has anybody encountered this problem as well?

So far we were not able to reproduce it, but I feel, that it happens more often when many people working on the NAS. Normally we have 4-5 people working on the NAS in peak hours maybe 7-8.

If the system does not respond anymore we have to press the power button for several seconds to crash the system. Then it comes up normally, starts rebuilding the RAID set and can be accessed again. I also tried to reboot the system every night (crontab) but this did not bring any change to the behavior.

I have tried to downgrade the system to the release 1.08, but failed to do so. Could somebody also tell me if it is possible to downgrade the SS4200-e?

Any idea?

Thanks,

Rolly

7 Replies
Daniel_O_Intel
Employee
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You can back rev from 1.1.11.32736 to 1.0.8.29352 using the process found in AA 903 at:

 

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/ss4200-e/sb/CS-029094.htm

 

AA 903 is just rewriting the OS manually. Up or down it doesn't matter. It shouldn't mess with data, but BACK UP your data first.

When I power button to a complete off state, my system doesn't have to rebuild the RAID. Something odd's going on there.

You can look through the dump (diagnostic) file to see if anything's wrong. To get a dump file, go to the "Settings" tab and replace the "settings.htmlxxx location with "support.html". When the support page loads, select "Dump Files" and "Dump" to create. View the index.html

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idata
Employee
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Rolly,

I am experiencing exactly the same problem. Do you have any solutions?

I tried to reinstall the memory. It seems the hang problem solved, but then the unit start rebuilding the data protection time to time and I cannot do anything before the rebuild is done.

Ming

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idata
Employee
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What is the fix action for this issue? I was unable to find an answer for this issue.

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idata
Employee
972 Views

Is there any solution? Our SS4200-E have started having the exact same problem. We are needing to do a restart every hour or so.

One strange thing: we cannot connect to the device (in windows or via ssh) and access any files, but we are able to ping the IP address. Since the page with the downgrade instructions is no longer available, we were not able to see if it would help if we downgraded our firmware.

If anyone has a copy of the instructions to do a firmware downgrade, that would be greatly appreciated.

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idata
Employee
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The solution is to install Free-NAS. This is exactly what I did, haven't had any issues ever since!

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idata
Employee
972 Views

Actually in my case it was a bad SATA cable - I changed it and everything worked fine.

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idata
Employee
972 Views

I'm having the same problem also after the update but I guess it could be the SATA cable. Was the SATA cable a problem found in others? It would be great to get this fixed and working like I know it should be.

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