Re: [2.6.21.1] SATA freeze

[Robert Hancock <hancockr@shaw.ca>]

Gerhard Mack wrote:
> On Wed, 9 May 2007, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>> Gerhard Mack wrote:
>>> May  9 14:51:35 mgerhard kernel: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr
>>> 0x1800000 action 0x2 frozen
>>> May  9 14:51:35 mgerhard kernel: ata1.00: cmd
>>> 35/00:00:80:6d:c8/00:04:09:00:00/e0 tag 0 cdb 0x0 data 524288 out
>>> May  9 14:51:35 mgerhard kernel:          res
>>> 40/00:c8:68:65:c8/84:00:09:00:00/e0 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
>>> May  9 14:51:42 mgerhard kernel: ata1: port is slow to respond, please be
>>> patient (Status 0xd0)
>>>
>>> Anything I can do to figgure out what's causing this?

You're showing various flags set in the SError register, which suggests 
you're having SATA communication problems with the drive. A bad SATA 
cable or power problems would be a strong possibility.

It really would be nice if we decoded these things more usefully for the 
user (same with the regular ATA errors, like drivers/ide does), but in 
general SError showing up as non-zero is a bad thing:

0x400000 = "Handshake error: When set to one, this bit indicates that 
one or more R_ERR handshake response was received in response to frame 
transmission. Such errors may be the result of a CRC error detected by 
the recipient, a disparity or 10b/8b decoding error, or other error 
condition leading to a negative handshake on a transmitted frame."

0x1800000 = "Link Sequence Error: When set to one, this bit indicates 
that one or more Link state machine error conditions was encountered 
since the last time this bit was cleared. The Link Layer state machine 
defines the conditions under which the link layer detects an erroneous 
transition."

and

"Transport state transition error: When set to one, this bit indicates 
that an error has occurred in the transition from one state to another 
within the Transport layer since the last time this bit was cleared."

-- 
Robert Hancock      Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@nospamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/