[Bug 403026] Re: EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): htree_dirblock_to_tree: bad entry in directory

[Marc Clemente]

Hello,

I have a similar problem.  I don't know if it's exactly the same thing.
Here's my scenario.

I had an AMD Athlon 64 3700 @ 2.2GHz motherboard.  4 GB memory, running
Debian 2.6.32 kernel.  Hooked up to the motherboard were two sata drives
(sda and sdb).  Each drive had two partitions (sda1, sda2, sdb1, sdb2).
I ran raid as follows (md0 is swap, and md1 is the root partition):

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md0 : active (auto-read-only) raid1 sdb1[0] sda1[1]
      4000064 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md1 : active raid1 sdb2[0] sda2[1]
      240195776 blocks [2/2] [UU]

unused devices: <none>

Everything worked fine for years.  A few weeks ago, I decided to get a
new motherboard, with an Intel i7 950 @ 3.07 GHz and 12 GB memory.  An
easy drop-in replacement, right?  As soon as I started the computer,
everything worked.  A few minutes later, I get these errors:

Mar 12 10:57:32 marc kernel: [ 2818.975238] EXT3-fs error (device md1): ext3_readdir: bad entry in directory #21532139: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0
Mar 12 10:57:32 marc kernel: [ 2818.975244] Aborting journal on device md1.
Mar 12 10:57:32 marc kernel: [ 2818.977021] ext3_abort called.
Mar 12 10:57:32 marc kernel: [ 2818.977023] EXT3-fs error (device md1): ext3_journal_start_sb: Detected aborted journal
Mar 12 10:57:32 marc kernel: [ 2818.977025] Remounting filesystem read-only
Mar 12 10:57:32 marc kernel: [ 2819.002578] Remounting filesystem read-only

Of course, this would require a reboot, and an fsck.  Only to happen
again a few minutes later. This is what I did to further troubleshoot:

1. It's not the memory.  I ran memtest86+ for days at a time with no
errors.  I replaced the memory with 4 GB from a different manufacturer.
Problems continued.

2. The old processor was single-core, non-hyperthreading.  The new
processor is quad-core, hyperthreading.  I went into the BIOS and turned
off hyperthreading and multi-core.  Problems continued.

3. It's probably not the hard drives.  I have never had a hardware
errors, and they were working fine two weeks ago with the old
motherboard.

4. I have forced a resync of the raid array twice.  Once by removing and
re-adding sda2.  Another time by removing and re-adding sdb2.  Problems
continued.

5. I did not change the kernel when I changed the motherboard.

6. At this point it might be a linux software raid issue.  I installed a
new hard drive with a single ext3 partition (sdc1).  I copied the
contents of the raid array to the new drive (cp -avx / /mnt).  Rebooted
the computer from sdc.  Now sdc1 is my root partition.  I have not yet
had any errors with the root partition on sdc1.  If I mount the raid
partition (md1) and start using it, then I will get ext3 errors on it
almost immediately.

7. I run Debian, this is an Ubuntu forum. I know.

Let me know if you need more info from me.

Marc

-- 
EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): htree_dirblock_to_tree: bad entry in directory
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/403026
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