RT-AC68U SAMBA share - deleted/damaged files after move operation

[luka_w]

OK folks, this is what happenned to me a few times already:

I've HDD drive, NTFS formated, connected via USB 3.0, mapped in WIN7 system.

When I move (in total commander) folder with few files (e.g. 10GB bluray movie) from one folder to another, sometimes this big files after this operation are damaged (e.g. I cannot watch the movie) !

Then, when connecting HDD to PC directly and running CHDSK, it finds corrupted data and fixes it - damaged files are become 0 bytes large.

Anyone else experienced sth like this or just me (maybe sth wrong with HDD hardware...)
?

edit: the files have $ATTRIBUTE_LIST corrupted

 

[haszek]

I had many times like this on RT-AC56U. Suddenly my files were size of 0kb. New drive, new router. It happened on usb 3.0. Switched to 2.0 and it works fine for a longer time but still have problems from time to time.
I can compare it to backup image because suddenly my drive looks like 2 weeks ago. So everything that was saved on it during this time just disappears. Annoying, never had this kind of issues with old rt-16.

 

[sinshiva]

if you are going to leave a hdd primarily connected to the router, you may get a lot more stability using a supported linux format. not sure about ext4, but ext3 is a safe bet

 

[RMerlin]

Not a fan of NTFS under Linux. In the past, I've delt with a lot of issues related to data corruption and Paragon's NTFS driver. The WDTV had the same issues (only worse, as it was using an older version of Paragon's driver, NTFS-based disk where regularly corrupted, SMB had performance issues, and so on).

Unfortunately, Paragon cannot be fully blamed for this. They do their best at implementing support for a closed-source filesystem, through mostly reverse engineering.

I recommend using ext3 whenever possible when connecting a USB disk to any Linux-based device, such as Asus routers.

 

[MrBrian]

ext4 & RT-AC56U

Is there anything not recommended about ext4 format for USB 3.0 drives on the RT-AC56U with your 35_4 or later builds? I have a 3TB drive on mine. Seems to work fine. Samba had some problems with network back-ups but just needed a change in smb.conf...

 

[RMerlin]

Is there anything not recommended about ext4 format for USB 3.0 drives on the RT-AC56U with your 35_4 or later builds? I have a 3TB drive on mine. Seems to work fine. Samba had some problems with network back-ups but just needed a change in smb.conf...

It should be fine, it's just that ext4 is only supported on the RT-AC56U and RT-AC68U.

What change did you have to do to smb.conf?

 

[MrBrian]

It should be fine, it's just that ext4 is only supported on the RT-AC56U and RT-AC68U.

What change did you have to do to smb.conf?

In /jffs/configs/smb.conf
[GLOBAL]
...
# modified 12022013 to make casper work
# strict allocate = No
strict allocate = yes
...

This is what FSSDEV(Casper Backup 8.0) said was needed to make their backup program work with Samba on Linux drives.
Looking at USB Application|Miscellaneous setting, I see I still have NTFS Sparse Files support enabled from when I was trying to make NTFS drives work. Can I safely disable this now?

 

[RMerlin]

In /jffs/configs/smb.conf
[GLOBAL]
...
# modified 12022013 to make casper work
# strict allocate = No
strict allocate = yes
...

This is what FSSDEV(Casper Backup 8.0) said was needed to make their backup program work with Samba on Linux drives.
Looking at USB Application|Miscellaneous setting, I see I still have NTFS Sparse Files support enabled from when I was trying to make NTFS drives work. Can I safely disable this now?

From what I read, this basically disable sparse support at Samba's level.

You can disable sparse support for NTFS if you wish - it shouldn't have any impact at all if you don't have any NTFS disk.

 

[Raiu]

I have a WD 3t my book, is it better to use fat32, exfat or regular fat or just leave it NTFS? I am also having to corrupt files issue every once in a while.

 

[RMerlin]

I have a WD 3t my book, is it better to use fat32, exfat or regular fat or just leave it NTFS? I am also having to corrupt files issue every once in a while.

exfat is not supported, and fat is obsolete, limited to very small disks (think floppy disks for instance).

FAT32 will limit the filesize to 4 GB, and I believe Windows will also refuse to format large disks in FAT32.

If you need reliability, ext3 or ext4 is the way to go.

 

[Raiu]

Can you point me in the direction of a formatting application, so i can reformat this thing to ext3 or ext4? Or will windows 7 be able to do this after its already formatted ntfs??

 

[RMerlin]

Can you point me in the direction of a formatting application, so i can reformat this thing to ext3 or ext4? Or will windows 7 be able to do this after its already formatted ntfs??

They are many different ways to do so. Personally, I would burn a bootable CD with PartedMagic, and boot with it. It's a stripped down Linux distro, with disk management tools - similar to the good old Partition Magic.

 

[luka_w]

I formatted disk to ext4 but I get weird error message in the 'Disk utility' after scan:
'/usr/sbin/app_fsck.sh: eval: line 1: fsck.ext4: not found'

I hope it's a bug, becouse media/samba server seems to be working (from what I've read people have more serious problems with similiar error messages) and I also scan for errors (gparted live cd) and found nothing

 

[sinshiva]

not the fastest way to do it, but if you are using an sd card or usb flash, i'd just format from the router via telnet/ssh.

i used 4096 block size with ext3 on my crap 16gb class 2 card, works very well. i'd use ext4 if you have the option.

you can get class 10 16gb cards from walmart for 17usd. saw the same card at target for 30usd. recently grabbed some for the phones, etc. might get one for the router, too

 

[RMerlin]

I formatted disk to ext4 but I get weird error message in the 'Disk utility' after scan:
'/usr/sbin/app_fsck.sh: eval: line 1: fsck.ext4: not found'

I hope it's a bug, becouse media/samba server seems to be working (from what I've read people have more serious problems with similiar error messages) and I also scan for errors (gparted live cd) and found nothing

It's a known issue, but nothing major indeed. Asus implemented a disk monitor that can be configured to run scheduled filesystem checks, but they forgot to add the ext4 version of the filesystem check tool when they added ext4 support with the AC56/AC68. It shouldn't affect operation.

 

[luka_w]

It's a known issue, but nothing major indeed. Asus implemented a disk monitor that can be configured to run scheduled filesystem checks, but they forgot to add the ext4 version of the filesystem check tool when they added ext4 support with the AC56/AC68. It shouldn't affect operation.

that's what I figure
tnx for reply

 

[mostou]

I may have a similar problem, but I don't know what causes the issue. I uses the latest beta firmware (501) - I also had the issue with the 454 firmware (both on the new SDK). I can't remember if I had the issue with any previous firmware - but I think I also had the issue with version 371. I started the troubleshooting on the 454 firmware.

It started with my USB attached NTFS formatted My Passport drive. On some occasions I receive some "General Input/Output error"'s when saving ODF documents in LibreOffice. I formatted the drive to ext3 but I still occasionally receive the error. I also ended up with a text file I can't edit and save - other text files seem fine (the timestamp shows it has been saved but the content hasn't been updated with all my changes).

I have now tried to divide a 2GB USB pen drive in four partitions and format those with ext2, ext3, ntfs and fat32 (via Gparted Live USB). I can reproduce the issue with the text-file and in LIbreOffice on all four partitions.

If I connect the usb pen drive to my Linksys E3000 with TomatoRAF I don't see the issue neither with the text file nor in LibreOffice.

I access the shares from a windows environment (XP and 7). If I access the shares from Ubuntu (via VirtualBox) I don't have any issues.

Have anyone had a similar experience?

 

[mostou]

I have done some more troubleshooting.

I have the same issue with RMerlins 374.35_4 build. However with the original 3.0.0.4.374.205 build from Asus I don't have the issue.

The change is not in the smb.conf - I have compared the ones from the 205 and 501 Asus builds - they are configured the same way.

I have done a factory reset after each firmware upgrade.

So to sum up:
Occasionally file read/write errors occurs from a windows environment to an attached ext2, ext3, ntfs or fat32 formatted USB harddisk (experienced in LibreOffice Calc and in Notepad). The issue didn't occur in the 205 build but is occuring in the 454 and in the Beta 501 builds. It's also occuring in the RMerlin 374.35_4 build. I haven't tested other builds from Asus - so I can't say in exactly which build the issue was introduced.

Should I mention this in the "Beta 374.501" thread as well?

 

[luka_w]

after formatting drive to ext4 I don't have problems with corrupted files so far ...

 

[mtrains]

I may have a similar problem, but I don't know what causes the issue. I uses the latest beta firmware (501) - I also had the issue with the 454 firmware (both on the new SDK). I can't remember if I had the issue with any previous firmware - but I think I also had the issue with version 371. I started the troubleshooting on the 454 firmware.

It started with my USB attached NTFS formatted My Passport drive. On some occasions I receive some "General Input/Output error"'s when saving ODF documents in LibreOffice. I formatted the drive to ext3 but I still occasionally receive the error. I also ended up with a text file I can't edit and save - other text files seem fine (the timestamp shows it has been saved but the content hasn't been updated with all my changes).

I have now tried to divide a 2GB USB pen drive in four partitions and format those with ext2, ext3, ntfs and fat32 (via Gparted Live USB). I can reproduce the issue with the text-file and in LIbreOffice on all four partitions.

If I connect the usb pen drive to my Linksys E3000 with TomatoRAF I don't see the issue neither with the text file nor in LibreOffice.

I access the shares from a windows environment (XP and 7). If I access the shares from Ubuntu (via VirtualBox) I don't have any issues.

Have anyone had a similar experience?

I haven't seen the I/O error you mention. But I did run into the text editing issue yesterday. I was editing some .m3u playlists using windows Textpad. Even though it says it is saved the changes are not saved. I am using NTFS format. The firmware is Merlin's 36 beta1. But like you said it might be a problem in the later versions of the base Asus code.