Ext3 users - Jan 2003 - ext3 is still locking up

A brand new system setup with RH 7.3 is still Oopsing after every X hours.
The problem started after about 1 week without errors.
Sometimes everything is locked, sometimes still messages are written to
/var/log/messages.
Sometimes other processes keep running (can still ping the machine)

I upgraded the kernel to 2.4.18-19.7.x, changed the memory, but still got
problems.
When I read all sort of newsgroups, I read it can be almost everything.
Is 'downgrading' to ext2 an option (or even a solution)?


Problems with swap:
Swap:  522072K av,       0K used,  522072K free
(strange not 1 bit used)
--> How can I put something in the swap?, so I can rule this out


Hardware:
I read something about memory caching to write to the HD
--> It looks to me the crashed occur when the CPU/HD is trashed (they come in
both)
How can I stress-test these systems.


HD:
The harddisk is brandnew, so it would be strange to me that after 1 week
it's already being bad.
--> how can I rule this out?


IDE-bus?
Got a strang sentence at startup about the speed....

System: AMD Athlon 1150 (1 CPU), with Maxtor HD
At startup I see this, take is the next sentence OK?

 ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
 VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
 VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
 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 vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1
 ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc000-0xc007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA 
 ide1: BM-DMA at 0xc008-0xc00f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
 hda: Maxtor 6E030L0, ATA DISK drive




At panic-time in /var/log/messages
 Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000015
  printing eip:
 c0117289
 *pde = 00000000
 Oops: 0002
 autofs tulip 8139too mii ipchains ide-cd cdrom usb-uhci usbcore ext3 jbd
 CPU:    0
 EIP:    0010:[<c0117289>]    Not tainted
 EFLAGS: 00010202

 EIP is at copy_files [kernel] 0x169 (2.4.18-19.7.x)
 eax: 00000001   ebx: cd37ac84   ecx: c7bcf0a0   edx: 00000338
 esi: cd37ab4c   edi: cac7decc   ebp: cac7de40   esp: ca5fdf44
 ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
 Process httpd (pid: 650, stackpage=ca5fd000)
 Stack: 0000001b 00000003 00000000 00000360 c7bcf0a0 cd37aac0 00000000 00000011
        00000000 c29fa000 c011763e 00000011 c29fa000 fffffff4 c1aa4480 ca5fdf60
        00000008 0003aa21 00000001 ca5fc000 ca5fdfa8 bfffb7d8 ca5fc000 40013020
 Call Trace: [<c011763e>] do_fork [kernel] 0x2ce (0xca5fdf6c))
 [<c0107515>] sys_fork [kernel] 0x15 (0xca5fdfac))
 [<c010893b>] system_call [kernel] 0x33 (0xca5fdfc0))



And now and then I see this messages (sometimes without any effects)
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing block in system zone
- block = 2
 fsck:  contains a file system with errors, check forced.




<2>EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not
in datazone - block = 3471323520, count = 1
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not in
datazone - block = 3275923520, count = 1
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not in
datazone - block = 3326435648, count = 1
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not in
datazone - block = 3422640768, count = 1
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not in
datazone - block = 3479942536, count = 1
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not in
datazone - block = 3251122320, count = 1
EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing blocks not in
datazone - block = 3251122320, count = 1
Kernel panic: EXT3-fs panic (device ide0(3,5)): load_block_bitmap: block_group
>= groups_count - block_group = 131071, groups_count = 47



EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,5)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing block in system zone
- block = 2





Can someone push me in a direction please?

Pascal

Hi,

On Tue, 2003-01-21 at 20:53, Pascal Nobus wrote:
> I upgraded the kernel to 2.4.18-19.7.x, changed the memory, but still got
problems.
I'd start by running memtest86 on it.  Your oops:
>  EIP is at copy_files [kernel] 0x169 (2.4.18-19.7.x)
>  Call Trace: [<c011763e>] do_fork [kernel] 0x2ce (0xca5fdf6c))
>  [<c0107515>] sys_fork [kernel] 0x15 (0xca5fdfac))
>  [<c010893b>] system_call [kernel] 0x33 (0xca5fdfc0))
isn't actually anything to do with ext3; rather, the "copy_files"
function is an internal function which copies the the list of open files
from a parent process to its child when a process forks.  Getting an
oops there is usually a sign of memory corruption, and the 
> And now and then I see this messages (sometimes without any effects)
> EXT3-fs error (device ide0(3,2)): ext3_free_blocks: Freeing block in system
zone - block = 2
>  fsck:  contains a file system with errors, check forced.
errors are consistent with that.

You said you've changed the memory, but it could be many other problems
--- a CPU fault, the CPU overheating (check the fan!), cache problems, a
chipset fault --- contributing to the memory corruption even if the RAM
itself is fine; or the hardware might be perfect but the BIOS settings
wrong.  memtest86 is definitely the next diagnostic for you to try in
this case, as if that shows an error, you know it's definitely not a
kernel problem and you can start narrowing down which part of the
hardware is causing the trouble.

Cheers,
 Stephen