AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

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steamship
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AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by steamship »

As the title says, I've been having this issue ever since I got the AS-604T and updated the firmware. The firmware process automatically reboots the NAS, but I couldn't then access it, resorting to powering it down from the switch on the front cover, waiting a few minutes, and restarting. It's something I always meant to ask about every time it happened, but usually forgot about. I also tended to forget to get the NAS to perform a shutdown instead of a restart.

This is the important part: Yesterday's update to version 3.5.9.RWM1 however changed that. As usual, it did the reboot which resulted in it not becoming inaccessible. A restart as above ensued, and all was well. I should note that the files on it are usually only accessed in the evening time, from around 7:00pm until I go to bed (all my media files. Other files located on another NAS) which is why I never noticed it earlier. This evening around 7:00pm I switched on the TV as usual and accessed PLEX, but I was getting a little spinning icon indicating that PLEX couldn't access those folders. I opened up Windows Explorer on the laptop and tried to access the mapped network drive to the NAS and it failed. I tried accessing the NAS from the browser and it too was inaccessible. As for the NAS itself, nothing looked unusual as there were four steady lights for each of the drives, a steady blue light on the power switch and a steady green light below that.

I've checked the logs and there isn't anything abnormal. After the firmware update, I get firmware rebooting, system restarting, regional options synced, Disk Doctor scan of HDDs, restart and another scan. The only oddity I can see is that these system prompts are being done twice. I've attached a sample screenshot of these repeated commands. EDIT: Turns out I can't upload a screenshot, as I'm getting "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached." at the top of the screen.

I should note that I haven't changed anything settings on the NAS for a considerable time, with the only thing being done is a firmware update. I have the energy settings for the disks to goto standby after 1 hour, but even with that, accessing the NAS with Windows Explorer will only result in a few seconds of inactivity in Windows Explorer before the file structure is shown.

Any suggestions on what could be causing this?
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Nazar78
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Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by Nazar78 »

The restart hanging is another issue. For your inaccessibility issue, it could be loose network cables, it's hard to tell the root cause especially if the NAS crashed or hangs. Instead of rebooting, try reconnecting the network cable see if it helps. Think you could also try hooking up the HDMI to a monitor with USB keyboard attached and if this happens again, see if you can still access the screen content. For further troubleshooting, you can enable SSH, then SSH as root and run this command. It will not return anything but it will run in background until next boot or if you kill it. If it happens again then hopefully you can catch the crash in the file /var/log/diag.log:

Code: Select all

nohup tail -f /var/log/messages>>/var/log/diag.log 2>&1 &
AS5304T - 16GB DDR4 - ADM-OS modded on 2GB RAM
Internal:
- 4x10TB Toshiba RAID10 Ext4-Journal=Off
External 5 Bay USB3:
- 4x2TB Seagate modded RAID0 Btrfs-Compression
- 480GB Intel SSD for modded dm-cache (initramfs auto update patch) and Apps

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steamship
Posts: 51
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Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by steamship »

I don't see how a loose network cable would manifest itself 24 hours after performing a firmware update, or how restarting the NAS would resolve it. Reading through my initial post again, I did forgot one point, although that only goes against your 'loose cable' theory. What I also did yesterday was access the router and it showed two wireless connections (laptop and phone) and three wired connections (Raspberry Pi, Asustor NAS and Synology NAS). As mentioned before, the NAS appears to be working fine with all indicator lights and nothing showing in the log files, so it hasn't technically crashed, it just becomes unresponsive, and this is only since the latest firmware update.

I'll look into the SSH suggestion, but I don't understand the comment about the HDMI cable and USB keyboard. I can plug a HDMI cable from the NAS to the TV (I don't have any monitors), but where does the keyboard go, and how do I interact with it? What is the 'screen content'?
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Nazar78
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Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by Nazar78 »

I don't see how a loose network cable would manifest itself 24 hours after performing a firmware update, or how restarting the NAS would resolve it.
I've seen this happened, faulty cables, damaged connectors, micro vibrations from the disks can easily cause intermittent or failed handshakes. No harm checking.
but I don't understand the comment about the HDMI cable and USB keyboard. I can plug a HDMI cable from the NAS to the TV (I don't have any monitors), but where does the keyboard go, and how do I interact with it? What is the 'screen content'?
I'm surprised you didn't know your NAS could do this? USB Keyboard obviously plugged into the USB port of the NAS. Yes even mouse or the Bluetooth ones. Install apps such as the Asustor Portal to utilize the display. I have modded mine as screenshot below, for browsing, watching videos, playing games with gamepads etc. for the living room TV Image
AS5304T - 16GB DDR4 - ADM-OS modded on 2GB RAM
Internal:
- 4x10TB Toshiba RAID10 Ext4-Journal=Off
External 5 Bay USB3:
- 4x2TB Seagate modded RAID0 Btrfs-Compression
- 480GB Intel SSD for modded dm-cache (initramfs auto update patch) and Apps

When posting, consider checking the box "Notify me when a reply is posted" to get faster response
steamship
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:26 pm

Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by steamship »

Nazar78 wrote:
I'm surprised you didn't know your NAS could do this? USB Keyboard obviously plugged into the USB port of the NAS. Yes even mouse or the Bluetooth ones. Install apps such as the Asustor Portal to utilize the display.
To be honest, I don't use all the bells and whistles on either NAS. They're mainly for storage, with the only things I've bothered with was for hosting a few websites I was doing for friends prior to publishing. I just checked and the Asustor Portal is installed, so must dig out a mouse to check it out.

It's interesting that I was able to access the NAS straight away both from the browser and Windows Explorer, with it having being idle for about 11 hours. Maybe me just plugging in the HDMI lead moved the ethernet lead, even though I was holding the NAS in place. I'll have to keep an eye on this.
steamship
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:26 pm

Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by steamship »

Nazar78 wrote:The restart hanging is another issue. For your inaccessibility issue, it could be loose network cables, it's hard to tell the root cause especially if the NAS crashed or hangs. Instead of rebooting, try reconnecting the network cable see if it helps. Think you could also try hooking up the HDMI to a monitor with USB keyboard attached and if this happens again, see if you can still access the screen content. For further troubleshooting, you can enable SSH, then SSH as root and run this command. It will not return anything but it will run in background until next boot or if you kill it. If it happens again then hopefully you can catch the crash in the file /var/log/diag.log:

Code: Select all

nohup tail -f /var/log/messages>>/var/log/diag.log 2>&1 &
Since my last post, the same thing has happened twice more. What I did notice is that there seems to be a flurry of activity on all four HDDs as the LEDs flash like crazy and you can hear them. On both occasions, there is nothing recorded in the log files, and I have every protocol ticked to record, even those I haven't even enabled.

I did try your SSH suggestion, but suspect I've missed something out. I used PuTTY to SSH into the NAS, entered the username and password, which was fine. However, when I tried entering the command you gave above, it came back with 'permission denied'. What exactly does 'ssh as root' mean and how do you do it? I'm more of a Windows person, so 'root' to me would be the root of the drive i.e. C:. I tried the command 'cd /' and then your command, but it still gave the same access message.

BTW I have even tried swapping the ethernet cable from my other NAS, but I still couldn't access it.
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Nazar78
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Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by Nazar78 »

You're also using RPi, it's similar on how to elevate the privilege by using sudo and/or su.
BTW I have even tried swapping the ethernet cable from my other NAS, but I still couldn't access it.
There was someone in the forum who reported he can't access the mapped drives even it was pingable, guess what it turns out to be a faulty NIC claimed by his technician. You can ping but can't access the maps? It's new to me, probably some settings in the NIC or TCP. So yeah you can't be too sure, test every connection point.
AS5304T - 16GB DDR4 - ADM-OS modded on 2GB RAM
Internal:
- 4x10TB Toshiba RAID10 Ext4-Journal=Off
External 5 Bay USB3:
- 4x2TB Seagate modded RAID0 Btrfs-Compression
- 480GB Intel SSD for modded dm-cache (initramfs auto update patch) and Apps

When posting, consider checking the box "Notify me when a reply is posted" to get faster response
steamship
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:26 pm

Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by steamship »

Will test the second ethernet port tomorrow, but having issues again this evening.

Watched a film about 30 minutes ago, and then watched about 30 minutes of YouTube videos on my TV. Went back to using Plex on the NAS and it's churning away again. Eventually got access to the NAS via the browser, checked the log files and there's nothing there. Looked through the Activity monitor and the memory usage was at 96%. Then went into Processes and something called ksapd0 was running at 22.5%, with the next few closest around 2.0-2.2%.

It has now calmed down and kswapd0 is 0.0% (sleeping) and memory usage at 26% (just accessing the NAS via the browser).
steamship
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:26 pm

Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by steamship »

Well, I've now tried the secondary LAN port using three different ethernet cables, and still having issues. As previously stated, this only started happening after updating to the latest firmware. Since purchasing the NAS several years ago, the last time I had any sort of issue was over two years ago. Since then, the NAS just runs the default installed stuff, plus utorrent, Transmission and Plex (utorrent and Transmission not doing anything).

For the past two nights now, the NAS becomes unresponsive whilst watching a film or TV episode via Plex on my TV. Last night I ended up having to reset the NAS, but tonight stopped Plex on my TV, and was able to access the ADM via the browser.

The memory hog this time is 'java' and is varying between 23% and 49%, and has been for the past 45 minutes and counting. There are a few other processes running as well (varies from 1 to 6), with between 0.0% and 2.2% CPU.

Is it possible to revert back to a previous firmware version, as the only recent change has been the firmware update, and I've had to reset the NAS more times in the past two weeks than I've done in the past six years?
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Nazar78
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Re: AS-604T - Inactive After Firmware Update

Post by Nazar78 »

Ok we can rule out the physical connection issue for now. It seems to be your system bottlenecked and/or ran out of resources. 96% memory usage is very high. Sure nothing in the /var/log/messages? Probably it'll help if you can post it here the last few lines when your system becomes unstable.

It's been long since I've used Plex but IIRC it's based on Python but Java process using 23/49%? `ps -ef|grep -i java` tell us which it belongs to. That could be the culprit.

Not sure if reverting back to previous firmware will solve the issue as it could be the updated apps causing it. Also it's unknown the implication of downgrading the firmware but you can try. There's several ways to downgrade:
  • 1. Simply tricking the NAS that it's using an older version by editing the config file Version/Lastversion/Baseversion: /volume0/etc/nas.conf (ensure to backup prior). Then download the older firmware from https://www.asustor.com/service/downloa ... duct_id=41, reference it from the release notes to find out the older version name and manually update it in Settings => ADM Update.
  • 2. Extract the images from the downloaded firmware, then dump it in your NAS DOM two partitions /dev/mmcblk0p[2-3] which needs to be unlocked and mounted prior. You should be very comfortable with terminal and recovery operations before using this approach.
I have not tried the first method but had many times updated my NAS kernel/initramfs etc using the second method. So if the first method doesn't work, the second should do the job.
AS5304T - 16GB DDR4 - ADM-OS modded on 2GB RAM
Internal:
- 4x10TB Toshiba RAID10 Ext4-Journal=Off
External 5 Bay USB3:
- 4x2TB Seagate modded RAID0 Btrfs-Compression
- 480GB Intel SSD for modded dm-cache (initramfs auto update patch) and Apps

When posting, consider checking the box "Notify me when a reply is posted" to get faster response
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