| Computer Related > PC hanging | Miscellaneous |
Thread Author: smokie |
Replies: 62 |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 16:26
PC hanging - smokie
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I mentioned elsewhere about this, and thought I'd fixed it by removing Malwarebytes Premium but I haven't. It's a problem described on the internet as the green bar of death. Some people suggest poking about in the registry but given the circumstances I think if that fixed it it would be a "bypass" rather than a cure, which I'd sooner not do. Other than that, I've tried some of the better and ignored some of the more stupid suggestions. So the symptom is that randomly my computer will stop being able to access the WD NAS shares, which hangs Windows Explorer and obviously if I am on a Word doc which is on the NAS it won't save. If I leave it long enough (usually 10+ minutes) it always completes whatever is blocking and carries on like nothing happened. Task and Performance manager don't show any over committed tasks or resources. The network is still fine and I can continue browsing the internet. By default I use a wired connection but it happens on the WiFi too. The NAS is fine as I can reach it from other devices on my LAN and from outside to read and write. I've run all the diags anyway and all is clean. Interestingly, I was on a TTY session to my Pi (also on the LAN) when it went earlier, and the TTY session remained OK. Before it failed the other day I had set up a continual ping to the NAS and this continued running when it had failed. I've removed all unnecessary hardware and USBs from my computer and started in Safe mode with networking but still had the problem. I have re-seated most of the power and disk cables and checked the fans and cooling. I've run Windows, Windows network and disk diags (even though the SSDs report there is no need) and re-installed the network driver. The only likely stuff in the event logs is likely to be a result of the hang not the cause. I've changed the disk which the system pages to. I haven't thought to try to connect to any other network devices but I suspect they'll be OK - but I don't think it is problem with the NAS. The problem is once Explorer has hung you can't open another iteration of it. I went back to an image of the C drive from some weeks before the recent updates (one of which seemed fairly major) and still had the problem - though it may have re-applied the update without me noticing. I am pretty sure that rebooting doesn't fix it, but I need to recheck that, especially a complete shutdown and reboot ( - if the latter is so then I guess its hardwsre). Nothing about the machine has changed - i.e. no new hardware. It can go for a few days without a problem, or can happen two of three times in a day (I use my PC a lot!). I have two things left to try which are to go back to an image from the summer and prevent it from loading updates (which isn't desirable but needs must) and take out each memory stick in turn to see if it is one of them. I suppose the last option is to put a clean Windows on it but that seems excessive. My feeling at the moment is that it is a Windows software problem, maybe with the protocols which communicate with the NAS, or maybe some internal problem which slugs the task which Explorer depends on. I guess putting the old image on will prove that (or otherwise). Anyone got any other ideas? |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 16:31
PC hanging - No FM2R
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>>Anyone got any other ideas? Your technical knowledge is in front of mine but yes, I do. I had all of that and tried all of that. I could not get to the bottom of it whatever I tried and wherever I looked. I even went the rule of a full and clean install. Then one of my disks failed. And when I replaced it the problem had gone away, and stayed away. Interestingly I had tested the disks in a perfunctory way and not spotted anything. Guess I should have tried harder. Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 25 Nov 20 at 16:32
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 16:36
PC hanging - smokie
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OK, that's something I can try fairly easily, I have a couple of spares kicking around I should be able to try. It must be one of my SSDs though as that's all I have in the system. The SMART utility didn't show much to concern me. Added to the to-do list, thanks :-) |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 17:29
PC hanging - Zero
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Ah SSD. Had a similar issue, Discovered that SSD's dpnt reliably report errors when using windows tools to check them. Mine was fixed by upgrading the firmware on the SSD (A samsung I seem to recall) and an Fdisk. With SSd issues you need to use the manufacturers checking utilities, they are very firmware dependent. - Edit, meaning the firmware tells the OS a bunch of porkies. Last edited by: Zero on Wed 25 Nov 20 at 17:31
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 16:49
PC hanging - tyrednemotional
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A number of NAS devices depend on the old SMB1 protocol for communication with Windows. It is disabled in the latest versions of W10, but can be re-enabled (beware, it is a known security target, which is why it is disabled). I enabled it some time ago because of NAS issues, and I've just checked it is still "on". The symptoms you have may be some sort of locking problem during file-sharing (there are certainly reasons to suspect the NAS from your symptoms) but it is far from conclusive. If your NAS is less than recent (such that it never required SMB1) then it might be worth checking its status an, if necessary turning it on in W10. It requires a reboot to add/remove, but is a simple process. www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/configuration/windows-smb/ It's a pretty long shot, but a fairly easy try. Last edited by: tyrednemotional on Wed 25 Nov 20 at 16:49
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 17:09
PC hanging - smokie
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Thanks, I have 2 NASs and the old one (a Thecus N2200) requires SMB1 so that is already enabled. I did check that a Windows upgrade hadn't reverted it (like it did once before) but it hadn't. The newer NAS is a WD My Book or something and uses SMB3. I'm open to all suggestions but I suspect it isn't a NAS problem, as the device is fine from other devices at the time I am experiencing the problem on my PC. |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 19:43
PC hanging - smokie
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I've taken a slightly opposing view with the NAS - it's not dependent on SMB1 as it works most of the time so I've disabled SMB2 and SMB3 on the PC to force it to SMB1 to see if it is the protocol somehow giving problems. I don't think it will be but worth a try. I am planning to do the disk tomorrow. I already have the image ready. I don#t have a spare sufficiently large SSD to restore it to but I think I can simply restore to an old SATA drive and it will sort out the MBR and boot sector - we'll see!! |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 21:11
PC hanging - Kevin
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| When it hangs does it always recover after the same amount of time ie after say X seconds or possibly always a multiple of some value like 5 or 10 seconds? |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 21:40
PC hanging - smokie
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| It's never seconds, 10 minutes or more and never been measured. Enough time to go downstairs and make a cuppa at least. |
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New Wed 25 Nov 20 21:50
PC hanging - Kevin
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Sorry, I meant "the delay measured in seconds". So, 600 seconds or 720, 750 seconds etc etc. If it's the same delay each time or a different delay but always a multiple of X seconds it tells you whether it's something like a spinlock or watchdog timer tripping. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 00:07
PC hanging - smokie
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Ah yes, I see where you're going with that. I don't think I'll be able to measure that though. I don't notice the problem till I do something to expose it, like save to the drive, or open Explorer. Whether that actually triggers the problem or just shows it up I don't know. Also I don't know when it is going to strike, so each time I do something which may trigger it I'd need to be ready. And I suppose sitting with a stop watch measuring for 10 minutes or whatever it is might become tiresome. But it's a good call and I'll try to be a bit more accurate in measuring the "outage" and if it looks like there is mileage in it I can become more scientific about it. Certainly it usually comes back in a "reasonable" time i.e. it's never been hours. It probably is fairly consistent. I fancy it is more like something timing out rather than something breaking and working slowly (but one could cause the other of course). |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 08:32
PC hanging - Zero
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| Whats happening in task manager, Process hugging cpu? high disk i/o? anything like that? |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 09:08
PC hanging - smokie
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Nope, no sign of anything hogging any resource, or unexpected/extended spikes happening. The NAS reports itself as in Good condition with nothing in its logs. Currently running with SMB2 and 3 disabled and will see what happens. As you can tell, it sometimes doesn't happen for days. If/when it does this time i am going to 1) try to estimate the duration 2) see if I can connect to other network resources 3) check whether a reboot fixes it (cos I can't remember) 2) stick the old SATA in as C drive and blow the SSD C drive image onto it - hoping it will work! then if it happens again 1) revert to SSD C drive 2) re-enable SMB2 & SMB3 3) take out a memory stick then repeat above with the other memory stick After that I feel I can only try a clean Windows install which will be a right royal pain with all the stuff I have installed, but I might just put on what I need for a few days and try it out as there is lots loaded which I don't need every day. All my data is on D drive (and the NAS) anyway. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 10:40
PC hanging - smokie
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Hmm it just happened and cleared within 2 minutes but that hasn't been representative. I wonder if it was already in progress but I just hadn't done anything to expose it. Anyway while it was happening a ping worked fine to the NAS and I connected the other NAS using net use in the command line. As it was unrepresentative I will leave it on SMB1 for another go. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 10:41
PC hanging - Crankcase
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This almost certainly isn't going to help, but I had similar hangs that were entirely untraceable. Somewhere I read something dribbly about "your network card may have gone bad with no reported symptoms". I then went the rounds of trying to update network card drivers from all over the place, nothing making any odds. In desperation I bought a USB ethernet thing for about a tenner. I plugged it in the next day, disabled the old card in Windows and it's never hung since. About a year now. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 10:58
PC hanging - Zero
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>> Nope, no sign of anything hogging any resource, or unexpected/extended spikes happening. Ok, is there a process, any process, that starts when the hang occurs and stops when it unlocks? Oh, and change the IP address of the NAS. Last edited by: Zero on Thu 26 Nov 20 at 10:58
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 11:09
PC hanging - smokie
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Thanks CC but it is happening on wired and WiFi. Though it's been my experience over the years that a fault in one bit of hardware can spray anywhere, corrupting memory or another bit of hardware or anything else. But that's a bit of a long shot at the mo. I don't know how I can track processes starting and ending, and especially when I don't know when the problem is active. Re the NAS, you've prompted a thought - I can try to run without the NAS for a day or so to rule that out. I can stick any stuff I might need in the spare space on the 8Tb USB drive which WD replaced my broken 6Tb one with!! I'll either just then shut it down or leave it up and running on the switch for other users on other devices (i.e. me on my Android mostly! :-). I'll start prepping for that now and implement when and if it fails again. Ta :-) EDIT I ideally need to leave the NAS running as I have a Pi saving stills of my garden to it for eventual knitting into an animation of how my garden changes over a year. It's been going since mid September, one pic every 10 minutes (except overnight) and it'd be a shame to miss a few days. Though if desperate I could make it write to it's SD card for a bit, but I'd sooner leave well alone - the Pi camera software has been a bit fragile in the past.. Last edited by: smokie on Thu 26 Nov 20 at 11:14
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 11:29
PC hanging - Crankcase
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| Oh well blow all the problems, the pi garden pics idea is genius and I'm nicking it. Ta. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 12:18
PC hanging - smokie
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Ha! I did the same with some sunflower seeds in the propagator. They don't half grow a lot once they start!! This is one day, in 2019. It's missing a few hours at about 6 seconds in but you hardly notice... drive.google.com/file/d/1K-m8r3Njy53FHLorI5R-Vx8Bczvi-weL/view?usp=sharing Last edited by: smokie on Thu 26 Nov 20 at 12:25
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 13:02
PC hanging - Crankcase
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| Won't play on my tablet so will check later on pc. Also a genius idea and nicking that too. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 13:14
PC hanging - Zero
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>> I don't know how I can track processes starting and ending, and especially when I >> don't know when the problem is active. Ok, (sure you have two screens) one screen have task manager/process's active window, click on column sort order for cpu activity. Extend window to the level where you have some 0% process's. You then have an idea of whats "normal" Yu may not notice when the suspect process starts, but you will know when you have the problem, and when it ends so you just watch your process window to see when it drops out. As soon as you know the process ID its becomes fixable, till then its guesswork. ideally you would do a windows dump to file before hand, then a windows dump to file when you have the issue, but as I, or you dont have the tools to analyse the dump thats a waste of time. Last edited by: Zero on Thu 26 Nov 20 at 13:15
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 16:17
PC hanging - smokie
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OK, that sounds sensible. I already have cmd windows with pings and other stuff running as monitors - it'd be good to lose them onto the second screen so I can keep them visible. Not sure why that hadn't occurred to me!! (I tend not to use the second screen most of the time) :-)
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 26 Nov 20 at 16:18
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 17:01
PC hanging - smokie
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Hummmmm so in the Explorer display the disk above the NAS is the reasonably new USB 8Tb I mentioned above. Maybe it's this that has the problem. So another action at next happening is to unplug this one. And/or to try running without it. But I'm not changing more than one thing at a time! (I really can't imagine it's the NAS itself as it isn't even directly attached). |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 18:40
PC hanging - Kevin
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>..I don't think I'll be able to measure that though. That's an easy one smokie. Run a simple little script in a command window to continuously append the current time to a file on the NAS, sleep 1 second, repeat. If you've got perl on there it can report to the millisec but I suspect 1 sec is close enough. You should end up with a file with a time gap in it that tells you how long it's been blocked from writing although Sod's law states that simply running the script will stop the error ocurring. If there is a command that shows processes or other internal stuff you could print that out to a local file every few seconds from another cmd window and see if there's any correlation between them. I'm not a Windows pundit, more Unix/Linux, so I don't know what's available for debugging Windows although I've seen something that will trace system calls for you and the hang you are seeing does sound like a system call taking a long time to return. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 18:49
PC hanging - Kevin
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Missed the edit: Have you tried booting from a Linux image and running a Samba share? That might discount or confirm hardware. |
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New Thu 26 Nov 20 19:06
PC hanging - smokie
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Time script to NAS is easy enough, I don't have a Linux image but I could easily knock one up if reqd. However. When i said earlier I'd reseated all the cables I meant the cables inside the PC. After the realisation earlier that the USB drive is new (and it is permanently connected) I reached over it to see if the data cable was tight and it may not have been. I'm really not sure. So I'll set up the time thing alongside Zero#s suggestions and keep going until it fails again. Thanks |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 10:00
PC hanging - smokie
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So when setting up the above testing this morning I thought I'd roll back some of the changes I';d made, starting with re-enabling SMB2 and SMB3. The problem re-occurred almost immediately, before I had the above stuff set up. So it wasn't apparently a dodgy connection to the USB. I've disabled SMB2 and SMB3 again and will set the diags up. EDIT 2 mins later - during setting up the diags it has hung again, so not to do with SMB. 2nd Edit - warm booted, it got to the Windows login screen OK and I entered my PIN but then it did nothing for a bit then gave me black screen. I suspect if I'd waited it would have eventually completed login but I wanted to cold boot - which did the same but then fairly soon went in OK and is now working as normal. The BIOS screens come up in normal time so no delays with it sorting out connected hardware (esp disks). Will get diags going then later maybe look at swapping disk. Last edited by: smokie on Fri 27 Nov 20 at 10:19
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 13:19
PC hanging - smokie
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I know your'e probably all bored by now but it's useful for me to record what happened somewhere so I can remember! So I decided to reboot, can't remember why, and it took ages to come back and when it did it was in the bad state. I as able to start the batch file as it's on a local disk to write files to the NAS. It just writes a file which is called whatever the hhmmss is then pauses for 15 secs before doing it again. It's at the bottom of this post. So in the network folder I have a period of about 35 minutes (from 11:30:01 till it freed itself up again at 12:02) when I should have had about 140 files. I actually had 8 files. The program echoes what it is doing on the screen, so you can see if sitting for ages in the copy command, then suddenly executing it and the subsequent commends in the loop (recapturing and formatting the time) then sticking in the copy again. So it is not stopped, it is just extraordinarily slow for about 32 minutes. The performance monitor shows nothing untoward during this time (though I have stopped a couple of things starting at startup as they burst into action occasionally and I never need that). I have some screen captures of the performance monitor after it rectified itself and if you take it that a queue of tasks is suddenly released again I can't see anything untoward. I also set another copy going to write to the local disk which ran absolutely fine without missing a beat (or a file). I've poked about in various logs and found one of two things of interest, and one led me to this report on the internet tinyurl.com/y6nj8ae8 so, although they seem to be set to overwrite, I cleared down the logs (after copying them). I could (I did!!) go on and on but that's enough for now! Here's the batch file: set bfolder=wcopy :START SET HOUR=%TIME:~0,2% IF "%HOUR:~0,1%" == " " SET HOUR=0%HOUR:~1,1% set m=%TIME:~3,2% set s=%TIME:~6,2% copy d:g.bat w:%bfolder%%hour%%m%%s% TIMEOUT 15 goto START and it works a treat |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 14:09
PC hanging - Duncan
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TL:DR and, of course, I don't understand. Are you back to what passes for normal operations? |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 14:51
PC hanging - smokie
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| Not yet, thank you for asking :-) |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 15:13
PC hanging - smokie
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And again - just 1 file (14:47:35) between 14:30:10 and 15:00:15. I did re-enable SMB2 & 3 but I'm taking them out again as there have been a number of "coincidences" with them. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 15:21
PC hanging - Crankcase
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Have you tried new funky Robocopy rather than ancient clunky copy? Just an idea. It's multithtread capable and performs a wee bit faster. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 15:32
PC hanging - Zero
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Ok, here is what I would do. (assuming you have multiple drives in the NAS). Take out all your drives in the nas, stick in a freshly formatted one, and test. If its ok I would then populate the NAS with one of the suspect drives at a time and test (taking care not to screw up my drive assignments) That way you isolate Network/Host PC issues from Drive issues. It sounds like a queuing/drive not ready issue. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 16:37
PC hanging - smokie
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Good plan but unfortunately it's a WD single drive NAS which I can't swap out the drive on. Remember the drive remains fully accessible from other devices, and also I can ping the drive successfully from my PC. I'm still waiting for a failure without SMB2 & SMB3 active. If it fails I think the next test is to turn the NAS off and leave the other one attached and see what happens ( - the other one only uses SMB1). I did backup the bits of the NAS I might need yesterday in readiness. I have just tried comparing file sizes of the files relating to SMB on three separate computers but they are different on each one. Oh - and as I was typing it has stalled and I've had that failure!!!! Hardly anything was happening in the resource logs. Time to shut the NAS down - so long as no-one else is using it!! |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 16:40
PC hanging - Zero
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| Ok, but ping and accessible is not the drive in the nas. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 16:50
PC hanging - Zero
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>> Good plan but unfortunately it's a WD single drive NAS which I can't swap out >> the drive on. Ok problem solving and man maths combine. Buy a new multi drive nas, Build a RAID maybe. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 16:44
PC hanging - smokie
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CC it isn't copy I'm having a problem with, it's the connection to the NAS in some way The copy is part of a diagnostic solution proposed yesterday to further knowledge. But thanks! :-) Last edited by: smokie on Fri 27 Nov 20 at 16:45
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 16:56
PC hanging - smokie
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Not for the first time, I'm thinking the NAS might just be a symptom. I just tried starting iTunes which has nothing on the NAS and it is hung up. It's data is all on the large USB M drive (NAS drives are mapped R upwards). M drive is, I think, OK as although Explorer windows is hung (and so does a new one if I open it) if I type m: in the Run box in Windows menus it opens an Explorer with the focus already on M, and I can navigate around it and open files (play music) from it just fine. (If I then click on one of the NS drives that instance of Explorer hangs). Last good file was written at 16:20:12 and resumed at 16:51:30 with 1 file written at 16:37:32. So again around 30 minutes. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 17:30
PC hanging - Zero
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1/ Never let facts get in the way of upgrading your hardware. Man Maths rule 1 2/ Remove all your drives, except your boot and swap drives, then reinstate till the problem occurs. I'm still convinced its a drive hardware issue somewhere. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 18:07
PC hanging - smokie
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Haha yeah but the NAS I've had my eye on is well expensive! Mid range Synology, and I really can't justify it. But I will try the drives, I'm currently running without that NAS (simply disconnected the shares) and so far so good. I have the old SMB1 NAS online and am happily writing files to it. And the easier option may be to go back to a July image and see what happens - to rule out Windows. |
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New Fri 27 Nov 20 22:46
PC hanging - Kevin
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Errr. Are you saying in your post above at 10:00 that the hang happened so you did a warm reboot and it appeared that the hang was still there after the reboot? You then did a cold boot and logging in was slower than normal but did work after a delay? |
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New Sat 28 Nov 20 00:17
PC hanging - smokie
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Yes pretty much. But the cold boot also went to a black screen for a few some seconds after login. Which I think must be slow processing again. So that's something internal in the PC? Either software or hardware. Not the NAS. Is that what you're thinking? btw it has been running copies to the older NAS (over SMB1) for 7 hours without a problem with the newer NAS disconnected - though I've not been working on it at all. EDIT I reattached some of the shares and set the batch file going to both NASs overnight. The WD one has about 200 less files so somewhere in the night it has hung up - I can see one 20 minute spell at 0727 and a 3 minute one at 0208 but they are hard to identify. Another edit: I have one and probably two other PCs I will set up doing the batch file test indefinitely. All I'd be looking for is whether the problem is really unique to my desktop. And if not, whether it happens at the same times of course. Last edited by: smokie on Sat 28 Nov 20 at 09:40
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New Sat 28 Nov 20 16:44
PC hanging - Kevin
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>So that's something internal in the PC? Either software or hardware. Not the NAS. Is that what you're thinking? No. A warm reboot should be exactly the same as a cold boot except it misses out the POST. All hardware and connections are reset and reinitialised just the same. For me, if the problem is still there after a reboot it points the finger at the NAS. I don't know the SMB protocol and how it works from a logical viewpoint but is the server (NAS) stateless or does it keep a table of what it thinks is the current state of each client connection? I've seen problems where stateful servers have got out of sync with a client and will ignore any message from that particular client unless it is the exact one it is expecting, even a "OK, let's start again" message. It needs something to force it to clear down the connection status and wait for a reconnect from the client. Can you unmap the client from the NAS at the NAS end? If you can, have you tried disabling and re-enabling the individual client on the NAS when the hang occurs? If that works and I'd got time on my hands I'd be reading up on the SMB protocol and firing up wireshark to see if I could see any sequence of messages that seems odd. (Wireshark can be filtered on the port number and can decode SMB packets into readable message types) |
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New Sat 28 Nov 20 21:41
PC hanging - Falkirk Bairn
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My computer knowledge is based on past experience - I have forgotten masses over the years and what I remember is often no longer applicable with today's systems. So far everything has failed despite best efforts and some sound advice. However nobody has mentioned hardware & connections. When all else has failed I would strip the main PC down - extract all disks, cards, connecting cables to peripherals etc etc. With everything out I would then reassemble the whole system. Turn it on and watch with baited breath. The last system that gave me intermittent heartaches was around 2002 - Sun Unix box running Oracle & student records applications. Brand new machine to replace what was a 6 year old box that had ran faultlessly for the 6 years. Apart from being closed down every 6 months and re-booted it had run 24x7. The new Sun box was running but could hang - it gave intermittent error messages. The Sun technician wanted to replace the 3 disks - setting up the hardware, installing Oracle and the applications represented some 5 days work that would need to be repeated. Machine pulled apart, rebuilt & re-booted and the problem disappeared - effectively in roughly 1+ hour everything was tip top. It ran for 3 years then all 4 in the Glasgow office were made redundant - last bastions of Oracle running on a Unix box were surplus to requirements despite still having 25+ Scottish sites running Unix & Oracle - everything was porting to MS + PC hardware. |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 00:51
PC hanging - smokie
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Thanks - but from my initial post "I've removed all unnecessary hardware and USBs from my computer and started in Safe mode with networking but still had the problem. I have re-seated most of the power and disk cables and checked the fans and cooling." That's not quite a 100% strip down but there isn't much I've missed - taking out the processor, re-seating the video card and taking one or two connections off the motherboard (like the speaker). I guess neither would take that long really. It hasn't played up at all today btw since my earlier post, and I've been fairly busy on it trying to get some PERL going on the Pi (steep learning curve for me!). I set two other machines on the write batch file to NAS task and they've not missed a beat all day - both WiFi which depends on the wired LAN (with these dreadful BT Whole Home things I bought a bit back). I think next step - if it fails - and I expect it will - is old image of Windows onto existing C drive, after that swap the C drive for another disk. |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 08:00
PC hanging - Zero
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>> Thanks - but from my initial post >> >> "I've removed all unnecessary hardware and USBs from my computer and started in Safe mode >> with networking but still had the problem. I have re-seated most of the power and >> disk cables and checked the fans and cooling." >> >> That's not quite a 100% strip down but there isn't much I've missed - taking >> out the processor, re-seating the video card and taking one or two connections off the >> motherboard (like the speaker). I guess neither would take that long really. The step most people miss, and the one that has fixed more issue than I care to remember, is to take out the motherboard, and clean the earth plane rings and standoffs. Not an issue in your example tho, its clearly a disk based process. (and you are going to owe me a beer when you locate which disk has the issue) |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 12:25
PC hanging - No FM2R
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>>(and you are going to owe me a beer when you locate which disk has the issue) Why? Just to reward the second person to make that suggestion? |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 13:02
PC hanging - smokie
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I think it's fixed. This morning I grabbed a lan speed tester (this one totusoft.com/lanspeed )and it showed extraordinarily slow speeds from my PC to the NAS, consistently much slower than other devices, even those on WiFi. The NAS is on the Virgin router and my PC is on a Gigabit hub which has an uplink to the router. The VM router also provides the local WiFi in my office. So I swapped the NAS LAN cable from the hub to the router and the speed went up by a magnitude of about 10 or more, and became fairly consistent rather than varying up and down. I tried different cables from NAS to router but no good. I then rebooted the hub and wherever I now put the cables I get the good speeds. I am thinking the port the router was plugged into on the hub had a crisis which a reboot of the hub fixed. Of course the other devices which were not showing an issue were connected by WiFi so not going through that router. Obvious now I think about it!! And annoying cos I'd rebooted everything else but that hub was out of sight out of mind. Many hours wasted. Thanks you all for your input, it really is appreciated. Virtual beers owed all round!!! |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 17:46
PC hanging - smokie
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| Ahhh seems I was counting my chickens before they were hatched. I'm back in a go-slow. I don't have any tools open to look at anything and the LAN tool won't open (well, it probably will in due course). So back to the orig action plan... old Windows onto existing disk then if that fails onto new disk. |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 17:50
PC hanging - tyrednemotional
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| ...it's Zero, honing his DDoS skills....... ;-) |
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New Sun 29 Nov 20 18:03
PC hanging - Zero
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| Think he is doing his own DDoS. |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 11:52
PC hanging - smokie
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| Seems to have been OK since I last posted. Probably should have kept my trap shut though! |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 18:25
PC hanging - smokie
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| Hmph!! I'm not posting any more in this thread. It's gone again. |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 18:36
PC hanging - No FM2R
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| I'm just looking forward to the point when you admit it's a disk problem. |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 18:37
PC hanging - Zero
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>> I'm just looking forward to the point when you admit it's a disk problem. Did we mention that? |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 18:44
PC hanging - No FM2R
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| I'm not sure, it was so very long ago that it's difficult to remember. |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 19:35
PC hanging - smokie
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Hahahahaha! So what would you like me to do? Image the existing C drive to a different disk? Or use an old image on a new disk? (I have one from 31 Aug) I'd have used the old image on the existing disk but that's cos I think it's a Windows problem rather than a disk :-) |
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New Thu 3 Dec 20 21:40
PC hanging - No FM2R
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| That's assuming that the problem is the system disk. I might not make that assumption. It could be any disk it's involved with. |
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New Fri 4 Dec 20 11:47
PC hanging - smokie
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I think I already removed all the other drives earlier in this saga. Last night I tried the August image on the current C drive, ran into the problem again. The PC and the NAS are now both plugged into the VM router thus ruling out the hub as a direct cause. I left a "Full" system diagnostic test running on the NAS last night. It is still running now, some 10 hours later, nearing the end though. You can still use the drive while it's diagnosing. What I would say is that the NAS is absolutely flying at the moment, often it is slow slow that the browser login screen never arrives and once it does it is really slow to log in. The LAN test I mentioned earlier is showing nearly 100% consistent speeds of 400+Mbps whereas it was anything from 30 to 400 before. The full diagnostic is supposed to "methodically test each and every sector of your drive. You will be informed of the condition of the drive once the test is performed." I don't know if it's done something along the way but I'm hoping it may have... Otherwise next test is C drive to a different disk. EDIT: I had done the Quick diag before but as the NAS seemed to be acting correctly from all other devices I'd ruled it out. (It's also reasonably new but I realise that can mean nothing) Last edited by: smokie on Fri 4 Dec 20 at 12:00
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New Wed 9 Dec 20 09:48
PC hanging - No FM2R
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| You've gone very quiet. Are you just embarrassed? |
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New Wed 9 Dec 20 10:05
PC hanging - smokie
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Nah, just going through an extended test phase this time :-) OK I'll say it's fixed. Though quite what fixed it I'm not sure as the only thing I've really done differently is the full diag wotsit on the NAS, and it came back with no errors. But it is performing consistently well now. I am a bit embarrassed that I assumed it wasn't the NAS as I thought it wasn't showing problems from other devices - and I still think that's true - but I probably should have spent a bit more time checking that out might have saved me some time elsewhere. Thanks again all. :-) |
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New Thu 4 Feb 21 16:29
PC hanging - smokie
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Seeing as this is still on page 1 here's an update... The problem reoccurred and is an irregular feature of my week, so it's not especially bothering me but I found I had a spare SSD kicjuinbg around so I've just rebuilt my system using a clean disk and fresh Windows software, carefully putting back on it all the programs I want etc. I finished it earlier today, and it probably took about 6 hours in total (well, alongside doing it I framed a lithograph of the Southampton set list by Ronnie Wood when I managed to get a Pit ticket, and a few other jobs.) It's almost finished. I had to reboot back to the old disk to get a couple of bits of info and when I went back to the new disk it had the problem!!! I'm not really looking for help as I now know how to get out if it reliably. If I reboot the computer it can still be a problem after reboot. Or it would just clear itself in time anyway (maybe up to 10 minutes). But if I disconnect my PC from the LAN (it's hardwired) and reboot it works fine right away, then plug in the network and it immediately sees all the network drives and works fine. I think my next changes will be a new Ethernet cable and also a cheapo card. Bearing in mind the symptoms have only ever manifested on my PC and I can access the NAS fine from elsewhere. The odd thing is I can still browse in Chrome during the problem and do other network things. I did put some tools on to analyse the network traffic during a problem but as I can't open files through Explorer during a problem (as it's hung) I guess I need to open a DOS window in case I need them (that won't open either when mid problem). |
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New Tue 9 Feb 21 10:03
PC hanging - smokie
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Ordered a new 1Tb SSD as I thought I'd found a problem with a disk but it turned out to be the cable, which I've replaced. I've ordered a couple more replacement SATA cables as they were all the same vintage as the dodgy one (which gave intermittent very slow r/w speeds). So I now have oodles of spare space on the PC, and some exceedingly impressive times for disk operations! On turning the PC on today it had the hang problem. Turned it off, unplugged it from the network , turned it on and plugged the ethernet back in once it was up and it was fine. I still haven't changed the ethernet cable :-). Such an easy change too... But it is a pre-made one with moulded plugs and not under any strain so probably OK. |
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