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I'm having some weird issues with my file server.... here are the specs.
I've got 2 raid arrays (software) setup (raid 5), 3 700GB drives and 4 1 TB drives, 512MB of eory. The machine is running openfiler.
I'm storing movies and tv shows on it (all legal) and on certain shows i have data corruption. On those shows towards the end it will stop playing the video (at the same point on each show). All of the movies are fine. I have recreated the shows and it's going it again?
Any suggestions?
Hi,
This might not be a corrupt File system. I oddly enough had a similar issue with videos not working or stopping, and after like an hour or checking, the obvious didn't grab me, ONE video had a character in the file name that wasn't making the software happy at all, and I renamed it, and it started working again.
If you're curious, it was a # in the file name.
Anyway, this may not be the case with you, and I do doubt that it is, so, other options are as follows:
Please reply with what OS you're using. (Mac, Windows, Linux, BSD / Unix) and also which file system from those OSs you're using.
This way we can determine how to check it properly.
Hi Keith,
That is an interesting one that gore has come up with (thanks mate;)).
I notice from your specifications that you only seem to have 512Mb of RAM. That is not a lot these days, and may be a cause of system hangs, particularly with XP pro or the "full strength" versions of Vista.
Is it possible that some of your shows induce some sort of memory leak? as that would account for hangs at exactly the same place?
You don't say what OS you have and whether it is 32 or 64 bit, but you might try looking for a free or trial memory manager that will show you an interactive display of the available RAM in your system tray.
If you are using Windows, you might try setting your page file to 2Gb and see if your shows hang in the same place?
;)
The specs given were just for the FS server, it is running Openfiler (on a linux distro). I not to long ago changed it to use a raid array and that is when it started happening. I think the file system is the same as i had it before (but dont know 100%). The file system is XFS.
The name thing is interesting.... i dont think it is the reason for my problem. I'm playing the videos in windows media player and vlc and it does it on both and the only special characters i have are -.
Hi Keith,
Just a couple more questions I am afraid:
1. Are these shows that freeze on both arrays or only one?
2. Have you tried downloading one of the faulty show files to a client HDD and seeing if it will play OK from there?
I am trying to figure out if the problem is with the server, the client, or the file itself.
Incidentally, what file type(s) are we talking about?
1)I've got it setup as 1 volume, so when i put videos up i'm not sure which array they are getting stored on.
2) No havent tried that, i have 2 clients so i'm pretty sure it's not the clients but i will try it
It only seems to happen on shows that are less than 25 mins and files that are in vob format. I dont think it has happened on other file types (avi).
Also openfiler says that all of the hard drives are fine. I'm not sure of any other logs that would show issues with hard drives
Thanks for your help
Hi Keith,
1. Sorry for the misunderstanding...........when you said 2 arrays I thought you probably had one for shows and one for movies.
I don't know much about home entertainment systems; my RAID arrays are all standard business ones. :(
2. I don't think that is the RAID array because when they fail it is usually fairly obvious and it would not select particular files. Your diagnostic won't show corrupted files though...............it only monitors the health of the RAID.
QUESTION:
Did these files work before you loaded them onto your RAID array, or are they ones you have acquired since?
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I have this weird feeling that it might be something to do with the actual transmission and the capture/recording/uploading?
I remember the early days of colour TV over here..........there was this tiny flashing icon at the top of the screen that told you the adverts were going to start............ could it be that somehow a TV station continuity signal has been misinterpreted?
I would be inclined to try converting your Ogg Vobis files into other formats and see if that makes any difference.
I am still interested if a manually transferred version works on your clients; as that will tell us if the file is actually corrupted or not.
Ok so everything worked fine when i first created the array, then it just started happening. So i recreated some of the data (thinking that something happened while copying the data over) but it started happening again. That's why i thought it could be an array thing.
I copied over the video to a local machine... and it worked fine no corruption or anything. Which is unexpected. So something is going wrong in transmission?
Is there any other device plugged into the same controller as your RAID??
Such as an optical drive or tape drive???
this may interfere with the RAID as the RAID software may poll that device thinking it is a harddrive or part of the array...thus causing errors when it doesnt receive the reponse it is expecting....maybe throwing the RAID software off..thinking a drive has gone offline or something.
The only thing that should be pluggedin to the same controller are the drives in the RAID array.
MLF
No the only thing that is plugged into the controller are hard drives
Hi Keith,
So, we have established that the files are not being misinterpreted by your players and that they are not damaged.
I guess that takes us to your server software and the transmission process?
Have you updated anything on the server and have you checked to see if there is a more recent version of your RAID software and Openfiler, also have you tried fresh installations?
I am curious:
1. Does this only happen with episodes of the same show, and does it happen with all of them?
2. Otherwise does it happen with all shows from the same source?
Also do the shows freeze/hang or do they appear to terminate normally, albeit prematurely?
I am still toying with the possibility that there is something included in the file that is getting misinterpreted by your server.
Two things you might try:
1. Convert/copy one of the problem files to a different format
2. Resample one of the files that has the problem
Incidentally, does Openfiler produce any logs?