OOPS: kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857 on 2.4.17 while rm'ing 700mb file on ext3 partition.

OOPS: kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857 on 2.4.17 while rm'ing 700mb file on ext3 partition.

[frode]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1778 bytes --]

Hello!

I got the following error while rm'ing a 700mb file from an ext3 partition:

Assertion failure in journal_unmap_buffer() at transaction.c:1857:
"transaction == journal->j_running_transaction"

I use the 'mem=nopentium' option on the lilo prompt while booting, hoping to 
reduce the rather large amount of oopses I have had recently, as I read 
something about AMD Athlons and AGP causing troubles.

Here's what happened:
1. I used dd if=/dev/cdrom of=image.iso to copy a cd to my harddisk
    (onto an ext3 partition)
2. I mounted this image on loopback to verify the image was ok, then
    umounted it again
3. I used cdrecord to burn the iso with my ide cd writer
4. I mounted the cd to verify it was ok, then umounted it.
5. I typed 'rm image.iso' to remove the image from my harddisk.

Just as I had typed 'rm image.iso', I got the error message printed above on all 
terminals. The system seemed to be running fine still, with xmms still playing 
and X running. So i saved the output from 'dmesg', 'dmesg | ksymoops', 'free', 
'lsmod', and 'lspci' onto a different partition. (see attached files).

I use ext3 on all my linux partitions. /home had about 230mb free space when the 
700mb file was on it, but df still showed 230mb after trying to rm it. Then, 
when I did an 'ls /home', the xterms locked up, so I ctrl-alt-backspaced XFree 
and logged in on the VT again which worked until I tried accessing anything on 
the /home partition. Then I did  alt-sysrq-s and alt-sysrq-b. Upon reboot, the 
journal was played back on the /home partition and the 700mb file reappeared. I 
rm'ed it without getting any errors and free space is again back up to about 930mb.

If it's of any interest, the ext3 partitions were converted from ext2 about a 
month ago.

- Frode


[-- Attachment #2: dmesg.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 8425 bytes --]

Linux version 2.4.17 (root@kingdom.e) (gcc version 2.95.4 20011006 (Debian prerelease)) #1 Sat Dec 22 12:17:05 CET 2001
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000017fec000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000017fec000 - 0000000017fef000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000017fef000 - 0000000017fff000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000017fff000 - 0000000018000000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
On node 0 totalpages: 98284
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 94188 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=VMLinuz ro root=345 bootfs=ext3 mem=nopentium
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 750.044 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x50
Calibrating delay loop... 1497.49 BogoMIPS
Memory: 383608k/393136k available (1531k kernel code, 9140k reserved, 583k data, 220k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Dentry-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: Before vendor init, caps: 0183fbff c1c3fbff 00000000, vendor = 2
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After vendor init, caps: 0183fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU:     After generic, caps: 0183fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU:             Common caps: 0183fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) Processor stepping 01
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 750.0392 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 200.0104 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 2000104, slice: 1000052
CPU0<T0:2000096,T1:1000032,D:12,S:1000052,C:2000104>
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xf1010, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Unknown bridge resource 0: assuming transparent
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:04.0
PCI: Disabling Via external APIC routing
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.15)
Starting kswapd
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
parport0: Printer, EPSON Stylus COLOR 850
parport_pc: Via 686A parallel port: io=0x378
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
Non-volatile memory driver v1.1
ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
block: 128 slots per queue, batch=32
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 21
VP_IDE: chipset revision 16
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686a (rev 21) IDE UDMA66 controller on pci00:04.1
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd800-0xd807, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd808-0xd80f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: IBM-DPTA-372050, ATA DISK drive
hdb: QUANTUM FIREBALLP LM20.5, ATA DISK drive
hdc: _NEC DV-5700A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: CR-4801TE, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: 40088160 sectors (20525 MB) w/1961KiB Cache, CHS=2495/255/63, UDMA(66)
hdb: 40132503 sectors (20548 MB) w/1900KiB Cache, CHS=2498/255/63, UDMA(66)
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 >
 hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 hdb7 hdb8 > hdb2
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
  Vendor: _NEC      Model: DV-5700A          Rev: 1.91
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
  Vendor: MITSUMI   Model: CR-4801TE         Rev: 2.03
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1 at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 17x/40x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 8x/8x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 32768)
IPv4 over IPv4 tunneling driver
GRE over IPv4 tunneling driver
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 220k freed
Adding Swap: 160608k swap-space (priority -1)
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,69), internal journal
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:0d.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:04.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:04.3
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
00:0d.0: 3Com PCI 3c900 Cyclone 10Mbps Combo at 0x9800. Vers LK1.1.16
Creative EMU10K1 PCI Audio Driver, version 0.16, 12:25:52 Dec 22 2001
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:0b.0
emu10k1: EMU10K1 rev 6 model 0x8027 found, IO at 0xa400-0xa41f, IRQ 10
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x8384:0x7609 (SigmaTel STAC9721/23)
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,66), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,70), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
lp0: compatibility mode
lp0: compatibility mode
lp0: compatibility mode
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
NVRM: loading NVIDIA NVdriver Kernel Module  1.0.2313  Tue Nov 27 12:01:24 PST 2001
VFS: Disk change detected on device sr(11,0)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISOFS: changing to secondary root
VFS: Disk change detected on device sr(11,0)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISOFS: changing to secondary root
VFS: Disk change detected on device sr(11,0)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 1
ISOFS: changing to secondary root
VFS: Disk change detected on device sr(11,0)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 1
ISOFS: changing to secondary root
Assertion failure in journal_unmap_buffer() at transaction.c:1857: "transaction == journal->j_running_transaction"
kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857!
invalid operand: 0000
CPU:    0
EIP:    0010:[<c015ea1b>]    Tainted: P 
EFLAGS: 00010282
eax: 00000022   ebx: 5444542d   ecx: c02f8ca0   edx: 00001fd6
esi: c6c86ab0   edi: cddfd6c0   ebp: 00000001   esp: cfa53e98
ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
Process rm (pid: 2318, stackpage=cfa53000)
Stack: c0293d60 00000741 cddfd6c0 00000002 cddfd6c0 00001000 c015eb6e c1643e00 
       cddfd6c0 c11202c0 00000000 cfa53f44 00000000 c1643e94 00000001 cddfd6c0 
       c0156ae2 c1643e00 c11202c0 00000000 c0125739 c11202c0 00000000 c0125763 
Call Trace: [<c015eb6e>] [<c0156ae2>] [<c0125739>] [<c0125763>] [<c01258c6>] 
   [<c0125971>] [<c014485e>] [<c0142e4c>] [<c013c69d>] [<c013c778>] [<c0106e8b>] 

Code: 0f 0b 83 c4 08 53 56 e8 99 fe ff ff 89 c5 83 c4 08 f6 47 18 
 

[-- Attachment #3: ksymoops.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 3086 bytes --]

ksymoops 2.4.3 on i686 2.4.17.  Options used
     -V (default)
     -k /proc/ksyms (default)
     -l /proc/modules (default)
     -o /lib/modules/2.4.17/ (default)
     -m /boot/System.map-2.4.17 (default)

Warning: You did not tell me where to find symbol information.  I will
assume that the log matches the kernel and modules that are running
right now and I'll use the default options above for symbol resolution.
If the current kernel and/or modules do not match the log, you can get
more accurate output by telling me the kernel version and where to find
map, modules, ksyms etc.  ksymoops -h explains the options.

cpu: 0, clocks: 2000104, slice: 1000052
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x8384:0x7609 (SigmaTel STAC9721/23)
kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857!
invalid operand: 0000
CPU:    0
EIP:    0010:[<c015ea1b>]    Tainted: P 
Using defaults from ksymoops -t elf32-i386 -a i386
EFLAGS: 00010282
eax: 00000022   ebx: 5444542d   ecx: c02f8ca0   edx: 00001fd6
esi: c6c86ab0   edi: cddfd6c0   ebp: 00000001   esp: cfa53e98
ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
Process rm (pid: 2318, stackpage=cfa53000)
Stack: c0293d60 00000741 cddfd6c0 00000002 cddfd6c0 00001000 c015eb6e c1643e00 
       cddfd6c0 c11202c0 00000000 cfa53f44 00000000 c1643e94 00000001 cddfd6c0 
       c0156ae2 c1643e00 c11202c0 00000000 c0125739 c11202c0 00000000 c0125763 
Call Trace: [<c015eb6e>] [<c0156ae2>] [<c0125739>] [<c0125763>] [<c01258c6>] 
   [<c0125971>] [<c014485e>] [<c0142e4c>] [<c013c69d>] [<c013c778>] [<c0106e8b>] 
Code: 0f 0b 83 c4 08 53 56 e8 99 fe ff ff 89 c5 83 c4 08 f6 47 18 

>>EIP; c015ea1a <journal_unmap_buffer+fa/1b0>   <=====
Trace; c015eb6e <journal_flushpage+9e/140>
Trace; c0156ae2 <ext3_flushpage+22/30>
Trace; c0125738 <do_flushpage+18/30>
Trace; c0125762 <truncate_complete_page+12/50>
Trace; c01258c6 <truncate_list_pages+126/190>
Trace; c0125970 <truncate_inode_pages+40/70>
Trace; c014485e <iput+ae/200>
Trace; c0142e4c <d_delete+4c/70>
Trace; c013c69c <vfs_unlink+13c/170>
Trace; c013c778 <sys_unlink+a8/120>
Trace; c0106e8a <system_call+32/38>
Code;  c015ea1a <journal_unmap_buffer+fa/1b0>
00000000 <_EIP>:
Code;  c015ea1a <journal_unmap_buffer+fa/1b0>   <=====
   0:   0f 0b                     ud2a      <=====
Code;  c015ea1c <journal_unmap_buffer+fc/1b0>
   2:   83 c4 08                  add    $0x8,%esp
Code;  c015ea1e <journal_unmap_buffer+fe/1b0>
   5:   53                        push   %ebx
Code;  c015ea20 <journal_unmap_buffer+100/1b0>
   6:   56                        push   %esi
Code;  c015ea20 <journal_unmap_buffer+100/1b0>
   7:   e8 99 fe ff ff            call   fffffea5 <_EIP+0xfffffea5> c015e8be <journal_try_to_free_buffers+9e/a0>
Code;  c015ea26 <journal_unmap_buffer+106/1b0>
   c:   89 c5                     mov    %eax,%ebp
Code;  c015ea28 <journal_unmap_buffer+108/1b0>
   e:   83 c4 08                  add    $0x8,%esp
Code;  c015ea2a <journal_unmap_buffer+10a/1b0>
  11:   f6 47 18 00               testb  $0x0,0x18(%edi)


1 warning issued.  Results may not be reliable.

[-- Attachment #4: lspci.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 1003 bytes --]

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C693A/694x [Apollo PRO133x] (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C598/694x [Apollo MVP3/Pro133x AGP]
00:04.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 21)
00:04.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
00:04.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 10)
00:04.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 10)
00:04.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 30)
00:09.0 Multimedia video controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo (rev 02)
00:0a.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 2064W [Millennium] (rev 01)
00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 06)
00:0b.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! (rev 06)
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c900B-Combo [Etherlink XL Combo] (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 256 (rev 10)

[-- Attachment #5: lsmod.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 348 bytes --]

Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P  
NVdriver              816864  14  (autoclean)
nls_iso8859-1           2848   3  (autoclean)
nls_cp437               4384   3  (autoclean)
emu10k1                58720   2 
ac97_codec              9824   0  [emu10k1]
sound                  57004   0  [emu10k1]
3c59x                  25512   1 

[-- Attachment #6: free.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 230 bytes --]

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        383828     249824     134004          0       6072     161672
-/+ buffers/cache:      82080     301748
Swap:       160608      23072     137536

Re: OOPS: kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857 on 2.4.17 while rm'ing 700mb file on ext3 partition.

[Stephen C. Tweedie]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 04:54:34PM +0100, frode wrote:
> 
> I got the following error while rm'ing a 700mb file from an ext3 partition:
> 
> Assertion failure in journal_unmap_buffer() at transaction.c:1857:
> "transaction == journal->j_running_transaction"

Hmm --- this is not one I think I've ever seen before.

> >>EIP; c015ea1a <journal_unmap_buffer+fa/1b0>   <=====
> Trace; c015eb6e <journal_flushpage+9e/140>
> Trace; c0156ae2 <ext3_flushpage+22/30>
> Trace; c0125738 <do_flushpage+18/30>
> Trace; c0125762 <truncate_complete_page+12/50>
> Trace; c01258c6 <truncate_list_pages+126/190>
> Trace; c0125970 <truncate_inode_pages+40/70>
> Trace; c014485e <iput+ae/200>
> Trace; c0142e4c <d_delete+4c/70>
> Trace; c013c69c <vfs_unlink+13c/170>
> Trace; c013c778 <sys_unlink+a8/120>
> Trace; c0106e8a <system_call+32/38>

Well, that's a straight forward trace, and looks perfectly normal for
a delete operation.  The buffer_head is locked at this point, and the
transaction itself is pinned, so I can't see any way to have an
unrecognised transaction here.

> I use the 'mem=nopentium' option on the lilo prompt while booting, hoping to 
> reduce the rather large amount of oopses I have had recently, as I read 
> something about AMD Athlons and AGP causing troubles.

Those problems included AGP cache coherency problems, but I didn't see
any mention of other instabilities as a result.  Also,

> NVRM: loading NVIDIA NVdriver Kernel Module  1.0.2313  Tue Nov 27 12:01:24 PST 2001

with this driver loaded we really can't make any guarantees about your
system stability at all.  If you manage to eliminate other oopses and
still get the ext3 one, even without the NVidia driver loaded, then
there would be a much better change of debugging things, but right now
it sounds like a hardware problem.

Cheers,
 Stephen

Re: OOPS: kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857 on 2.4.17 while rm'ing 700mb file on ext3 partition.

[frode]

Stephen C. Tweedie wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 04:54:34PM +0100, frode wrote:
>>I got the following error while rm'ing a 700mb file from an ext3 partition:
>>Assertion failure in journal_unmap_buffer() at transaction.c:1857:
>>"transaction == journal->j_running_transaction"
> Hmm --- this is not one I think I've ever seen before.

[oops trace snipped]

>>NVRM: loading NVIDIA NVdriver Kernel Module  1.0.2313  Tue Nov 27 12:01:24 PST 2001
> with this driver loaded we really can't make any guarantees about your
> system stability at all.  If you manage to eliminate other oopses and
> still get the ext3 one, even without the NVidia driver loaded, then
> there would be a much better change of debugging things, but right now
> it sounds like a hardware problem.

OK, I rebooted and gzip'ed the NVdriver in /lib/modules... to make sure the 
module doesn't load (lsmod now says my kernel isn't tainted). I'll try using the 
plain 'nv' driver shipped with XFree instead for a while. I tried making another 
700mb iso image and fool around with it (loopback mount it, umount it, then rm 
it) but couldn't trigger anything - but I just spent five minutes trying.

As I mentioned I have had quite a few oopses lately, most of them regarding 
paging etc. (but I'm no kernel expert). See for example
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101096234600708&w=2
and
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101128528029736&w=2

I'm running linux on an old p100 as well but don't see any problems, so as you 
say I suspected a hardware problem. I ran MemTest86 for about half an hour 
without any errors (but of course there's plenty of other things that may be wrong).

Do you have any suggestions on other ways I could try to put my hardware 
stability on trial, or try to reproduce the bug (to see if it occurs on a 
non-tainted kernel)?

  - Frode

Re: OOPS: kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857 on 2.4.17 while rm'ing 700mb file on ext3 partition.

[Stephen C. Tweedie]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 11:53:27PM +0100, frode wrote:

> >>I got the following error while rm'ing a 700mb file from an ext3 partition:
> >>Assertion failure in journal_unmap_buffer() at transaction.c:1857:
> >>"transaction == journal->j_running_transaction"
> > Hmm --- this is not one I think I've ever seen before.
 
> OK, I rebooted and gzip'ed the NVdriver in /lib/modules... to make sure the 
> module doesn't load (lsmod now says my kernel isn't tainted). I'll try using the 
> plain 'nv' driver shipped with XFree instead for a while. I tried making another 
> 700mb iso image and fool around with it (loopback mount it, umount it, then rm 
> it) but couldn't trigger anything - but I just spent five minutes trying.

Have you been able to reproduce any problems yet?

> As I mentioned I have had quite a few oopses lately, most of them regarding 
> paging etc. (but I'm no kernel expert). See for example
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101096234600708&w=2
> and
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101128528029736&w=2

iput() crash; page list crash; jbd transaction crash.  These look
perfectly consistent with random memory corruption.
> 
> I'm running linux on an old p100 as well but don't see any problems, so as you 
> say I suspected a hardware problem. I ran MemTest86 for about half an hour 

Try leaving it running overnight --- half an hour is very little time
for a proper memory test.

Cheers,
 Stephen

Re: OOPS: kernel BUG at transaction.c:1857 on 2.4.17 while rm'ing 700mb file on ext3 partition.

[frode]

Stephen C. Tweedie wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 11:53:27PM +0100, frode wrote:
>>>>I got the following error while rm'ing a 700mb file from an ext3 partition:
>>>>Assertion failure in journal_unmap_buffer() at transaction.c:1857:
>>>>"transaction == journal->j_running_transaction"
>>>Hmm --- this is not one I think I've ever seen before.
> Have you been able to reproduce any problems yet?

No reproducible problems, just more random oopses (like in
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101205570604468&w=2)

> iput() crash; page list crash; jbd transaction crash.  These look
> perfectly consistent with random memory corruption.
[memtest86]
> Try leaving it running overnight --- half an hour is very little time
> for a proper memory test.


Others have suggested this by mail also, and after running memtest for 4 hours, 
what do you know, a bit error occured.

Test#: 4
Pass#: 6
Failing address: 0aed1f64 - 174.8mb
Good pattern: 00080000
Bad pattern:  000a0000
Error bits:   00020000
Count: 1

I'm pretty sure that 256mb no-brand memory chip I added one year ago is to blame.
I'll try running memtest86 for 8+ hours as soon as feasible, but I guess I 
should just throw out the old RAM and put in some new.

I guess all I have to say is, sorry for wasting your time! :(

Anyway, thanks for your interest - at least I'm close to a solution now! :)

- Frode