Bug 144043

Summary:	[umass] [usb8] USB DLT tape drive throws random errors
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	Kirk Strauser <kirk>
Component:	usb	Assignee:	freebsd-usb (Nobody) <usb>
Status:	Closed Unable to Reproduce
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	emaste
Priority:	Normal
Version:	Unspecified
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Kirk Strauser 2010-02-17 16:10:05 UTC

I have a Dell PowerEdge SC1425 server with a USB tape drive. From dmesg:

umass0:0:0:-1: Attached to scbus0
sa0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
sa0: <QUANTUM DLT-V4 0A00> Removable Sequential Access SCSI-2 device
sa0: 40.000MB/s transfers

The problem is that it randomly throws tape errors during writes:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sa0 bs=1m
dd: /dev/sa0: Input/output error
3272+0 records in
3271+0 records out
3429892096 bytes transferred in 136.946745 secs (25045444 bytes/sec)

# dmesg | tail
[...]
(sa0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): failed to write terminating filemark(s)

This doesn't happen *every* time, but often enough that Amanda backups
fail regularly and I'm getting nervous about what would happen if I had
to explain this all to my boss.

To rule out hardware failure, I've repeated the experiment with identical
tape drive units, different USB cables, different USB ports, and both
used and new tapes.  Basically, writes to that model of tape drive
connected to that server will fail about half the time.

This is a production server, but I can run any requested tests at night
if need be.

Comment 1 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer

2010-02-18 14:51:38 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->freebsd-usb

reclassify.

Comment 2 Hans Petter Selasky 2010-07-25 12:37:05 UTC

Hi,

What USB chipset are you using? Nvidia based?

--HPS

Comment 3 Eitan Adler freebsd_committer

2017-12-31 07:59:46 UTC

For bugs matching the following criteria:

Status: In Progress Changed: (is less than) 2014-06-01

Reset to default assignee and clear in-progress tags.

Mail being skipped

Comment 4 Ed Maste freebsd_committer

2022-03-16 21:03:05 UTC

No response to request for feedback in 2010; I presume that this issue is no longer of interest.