Re: [sata_sil] kernel 2.6.17(-mm2) test - timeout issue

[Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>]

Martin Ammermüller wrote:
> Hello list!
> 
> I stress-tested the SATA-hdd of my notebook[0] again with current kernel
> versions.
> 
> With the 2.6.17 kernel i got a freeze after a timeout message (printed
> on the screen repeatedly). Running a 2.6.17-mm2 kernel, libata/sata_sil
> recovered from the timeout, resetting after a 30 second limit.
> 
> See the attached error-messages and dmesg outputs for details, please.
> 
> Regards,
> Martin Ammermüller
> P.S.: Does the reset/error handling procedure which happened when
> testing the 2.6.17-mm2 kernel include loss of data or is this a "clean"
> reset?

Failed commands are retried several times, so no data was lost in your 
case.  If data gets lost, you'll see more error messages from higher 
layers (SCSI, FS).

> ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen
> ata1.00: (BMDMA stat 0x21)
> ata1.00: tag 0 cmd 0xc8 Emask 0x4 stat 0x40 err 0x0 (timeout)
> ata1: port is slow to respond, please be patient
> ata1: port failed to respond (30 secs)
> ata1: soft resetting port
> ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
> ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
> ata1: EH complete
> SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
> sda: Write Protect is off
> sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back

It took more than a minute to recover from it.  I think we can use some 
improvement here.  Anyways, if your harddisk is doing this regularly, 
your hardware is faulty.  Maybe the connection between the controller 
and the disk is the problem or the disk itself.

-- 
tejun