Firefox unmounts 1TB drive on XU4?

Technicavolous · July 3, 2016

Am getting very interested in Armbian for a classroom server project and am experiencing an odd problem.

Certain web pages in Firefox will cause the hd to 'click' loudly, then the desktop icon disappears and the whole system locks up for about 20 seconds until the desktop icon reappears then everything seems fine again. I have not been able to pin down what is happening because it's inconsistent which pages cause the problem. (viewing the preview for this post caused it to happen.)

Might go an hour, might happen several times in a few minutes.

Right now my plan is to start from scratch a new Armbian install because I did to some messing around apt-getting stuff. I may have done something less than sane but nothing more than I've done on other SBC distros.

What tools should I use to try to track this down if it happens again?

Glad to be on the Armbian bandwagon lol.

Tracy

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Odroid XU4 with Cloudshell, WD 1TB, TPLink wifi dongle identifying as Realtek

rodolfo · July 3, 2016

Certain web pages in Firefox will cause the hd to 'click' loudly, then the desktop icon disappears and the whole system locks up for about 20 seconds until the desktop icon reappears then everything seems fine again. I have not been able to pin down what is happening because it's inconsistent which pages cause the problem. (viewing the preview for this post caused it to happen.)

Hi Tracy,

First thing I'd check is power supply. I've been running all sorts of HDDs and SSDs on OPI boards and regularly encountered problems when they were powered directly by the board. Peak current easily tops (additional) 1A. Additionally Firefox ( like most browsers ) spends 2-3% on useful stuff and another 97-98% on plain junk justified as personalized targeted marketing experience.

wildcat_paris · July 3, 2016

@all

the Odroid XU4 is provided with a 5V 4A PSU

IMHO Hardkernel provides good hardware -- Software is another point.

I trust Hardkernel for the hardware.

@Tracy

You HDD is a 2.5" format, isn't it? a HDD that fits inside the cloudshell box?

I have cloudshell + 250GB HDD I haven't noticed such a problem.

what you describe sounds like a HDD failure.

let me see if I can test with smartctl

wildcat_paris · July 3, 2016

@Tracy

I am using my custom version of Armbian with Jessie and kernel 4.6.3

so check smartctl with -a or -x options

gr@odroidxu4:~$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 6.5 2016-01-24 r4214 [armv7l-linux-4.6.3-odroidxu4] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Momentus 5400.6
Device Model:     ST9500325AS
Serial Number:    6VEQ0VBD
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 036ae4564
Firmware Version: 0020LVM1
User Capacity:    500 107 862 016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Mon Jul  4 01:17:13 2016 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

note:

please see http://odroid.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=en:xu4_cloudshell_smartmontools to install smartmontools

on my custom side, I had to install the lastest version of smartmontools package version 6.4/6.5 to access the SMART data from the USB3/SATA dongle.

note2:

sudo smartctl -t short /dev/sda

sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda

smartctl -a /dev/sda

to check if any failure

note4:

if the HDD has no hardware issue, try to use your wifi dongle on the USB2 port. Or even try to work with ethernet cable only.

Edited July 3, 2016 by wildcat_paris
notes

Technicavolous · July 4, 2016

the Odroid XU4 is provided with a 5V 4A PSU

As a 35+ year electronic tech I should have checked power first ... but as you say, there is 'trust' and I've had this 7a supply running for a year with no problems on many SBC's.

I powered up the XU4 with the cloudshell distro and indeed the backlight was dimming as the HDD clicked ... So I used the Hardkernel 4A wall wart and all is good. I will put my 7A supply on the bench tomorrow and see what's up with it.

Moral of the story ... clean and adequate power is critical ;]

I still have no clue why it was firefox that brought the problem to light. Perhaps caching? I haven't movedthe distro to the HDD so I don't see how that could happen.

Does one mark a thread as 'solved' on this forum? If so, how?

Thanks a bunch Wildcat!