I just abandoned openSUSE 13.2 after HD lockups - reverted to 13.1

English Hardware
1

Hi everyone,

I’m a bit of a lurker here on opensuse forums, mostly reading about problems and how to solve them.
Also, I’m a long time suse user, from 10.1 onwards if I recall correctly. As for my Linux skill level, I’ll score somewhere around Intermediate.

As for the topic, version 13.2 somehow locks up some of my partitions during actions that use the HD a bit more intensely than browsing and emailing.
The partion(s) will suddenly become readonly, while during boot and normal usage, it was just normal. Sometimes this happens on the /home partition, sometimes on another partion. Without exception, the affected partition needed cleaning during the next boot routine.

I’ve had this happen on two different computers, and I have no real clue what causes this. My 13.2 installation is updated frequently from community repos, so I had the latest software. The only trigger I have found is HD action. For example, it happened after I ran a torrent, with a lot of HD action. On my second machine it happened when I was downloading the suse 13.1 image by http. During last week similar lockups happened many times (>20). I tried reinstalling, repartitioning, formatting partitions in different filesystems. I even bought some new HD’s to try, but nothing I did could stop this lockup.

I just want to post on the forum that I ran into this problem. I need no help to return to 13.2, because I won’t. But if there are any questions about this situation, I’ll be happy to provide answers if I have them.

At this moment 13.1 runs fine on both machines with the same machines and linux setup (efi/single OS) as I used for 13.2
Hopefully 13.3 will be as good as we’re used to, or better ;).

2

Can you give some more information. For example, did the effected partition use “btrfs” (or what did it use)?

I have had that problem with 13.2 on one disk. It is an external drive, where I was doing test installs. It turned out to be due to an intermittent cable problem. And 13.2 is more sensitive to that problem.

My best guess would be that there is an underlying hardware issue in your case.

3

The lockups occured on internal HD’s with “Ext4 only” and a mix of “Ext4 with btrfs” and linux Raid. My cables have been fine for at least 5 years, and are fine at the moment running 13.1. ATM I’m don’t think it is hardware related, but admittedly I haven’t tried new cables.
Still, the lockups happened on two computers from different cpu/motherboard generations. The cables seem really ok, I have done some massive rsync copies to restore data :slight_smile: while migrating back to 13.1 and installing my new HD’s.

4

Also, I have used 13.2 for about 6 weeks without a problem. Could it be somewhere hidden in a software update? During last week I booted 13.2 from a LiveCD, and it ran for hours without locking up. Going back to the 13.2 on the HD resulted in a lockup within 10 minutes. I think we should rule out the cables for now.