EXT4-fs error

[Sokolov Sergey]

After logging in (after system crash) GNOME appeared, but without any buttons on panels and system went to terminal and displayed:

EXT4-fs error (device sda1): ext4_find_entry: reading directory #32 offset 0

I rebooted (hard reboot). Then log in windows didn't appear but some errors and

[ 66.818684] EXT4-fs error (device sda1): ext4_find_entry: reading directory #23 offset 0

System: Ubuntu 9.04 amd64
Proprietary kernel modules: nvidia (180.44)
DM installed: both GNOME and KDE.

Last time EXT4 crashed in testing branch, but after I reinstalled ubuntu 9.04 final clean.

PS It's the fourth time ext4 has corrupted my data. Even reiser4 is more stable. For 3 years no corruption on other PC.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Sokolov,

Have you still using an ext4 filesystem? The reason I ask if I've backported a few ext4 related patches to the Jaunty kernel. I've put the test kernels here:

http://people.canonical.com/~ogasawara/ext4-jaunty/

It would be great if you'd be willing to test if they resolve they issue you reported here. amd64 kernels are already there and I'll be adding i386 once it finishes building. Ideally we want to have these patches submitted as a Stable Release Update to Jaunty. Thanks.

[Sokolov Sergey (cleversokol-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi Leann,

No, now I have migrated to ReiserFS, because with ext4 my computer started his own life, deleting my preferences on every boot.

But, I suppose, I can test your patches. After tests I'll write the results. Thank you.

[terakin (terakinizers)]

Leann and all,

I have the very same problem in jaunty. My symptom is:

- The machine stops booting during startup (mainly in splash screen) like this;
EXT4-fs error (device sdb): ext4_find_entry: reading directory #25 offset 0
   The number of directory is different in each case, but generally 25 appears most.
- This freezing sometimes also occurs after the GNOME desktop is coming up. In some cases, after launching some applications like Firefox and Terminal, the GNOME environment suddenly displays a warning dialog (cannot read ... in illigible characters) and then turns into B/W screen.
- Forcing fsck does not make situation well. My machine sometimes stops even during fsck checking.

The only solution is to make hard-reboot. The Ctrl-Alt-Delete stroke does not work in every time.

I am still thinking whether using ext4 or downgrading to ext3. And I must wait few more days till the release of karmic.
Also, I applied the custom kernel made by Leann, but the symtom did not go better. One good point was that the times of hard-rebooting came down ... before more than ten times, after a few times. But it still need to be observed.

My machine environment:
    Computer: IBM ThinkPad X31 (2672-C2J), Pentium M 1.4GHz, 768MB memory
    Storage: 40 GB HDD with 16 GB external USB memory
       I am booting jaunty from this external USB memory. This USB memory contains a microSD card inside (works just as a very small card reader). My HDD is totally dedicated for Windoze XP.

    I hope this message helps.

Thanks,

[matthewm (matthewm-ifh)]

terakin's crash description matches mine. It was happening before with the previous hard drive, and I thought perhaps I had a bad hard disk. I bought a new Seagate Momentus drive and am having the same problems.

My machine is a Dell latitude d630, and I was running a fresh install of ubuntu 9.10.

Just now I had a crash, then a cold boot, and now I get the following during boot:

Grub loading.
error: unknown filesystem
grub rescue>

I guess ext3 might be safer for the next install.
Any chance I can get at my data or is everything fried?

Thanks.

[alperyilmaz (alperyilmaz)]

I have similar error message in a rather different scenario. System logs in fine and runs fine. When I attempt to suspend, the machine sleeps, but cannot resume. I end up with a blank screen in which mouse is responsive. I switch to virtual terminal and I see the error message mentioned in this bug being printed in a continuous loop.

EXT4-fs error (device sda5): ext4_find_entry: reading directory #81922 offset 0

(/dev/sda5 is root partition, /dev/sda6 is home partition)

I had to cold reboot the machine. I hope this helps and gives a clue to you and me..

[bareillesj (barjoo49)]

HI,

I have a similar issue. Since my migration to ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, the boot has become extremely slow.
(I tried booting with grub 2 also, the problem is still there ...)
Often fails to start and also get errors "ext4-fs error" (see attachment)
Someone would have a solution?

Thanks a lot.

[silverballer47 (silverballer47)]

This problem continues to happen for me in Ubuntu Karmic desktop edition amd64.

In my case however, my machine works fine for a few minutes and then suddenly becomes slow. Programs stop responding and then GNOME throws up a message saying that it "cannot find resources." At this point, icons go missing.

When I look in the terminal I get repeated ext4fs errors as described above. I need to hard reset to get it working.

I could try and paste a log if I knew where those ext4fs errors were getting logged to...

Thanks!

VR

[silverballer47 (silverballer47)]

I should add that the last time this happened was when I plugged my power into my laptop since the battery level was getting low...

[terakin (terakinizers)]

I reviewed this bug at the opportunity of 10.04 release, and all attempts below were unsuccessful.
Here is my configuration:

* Computer: IBM ThinkPad X31, 768MB memory, 40GB HDD
* Installation target: External USB memory (actually microSDHC reader), Buffalo RUF2-PS.
* What I want to do: Install Ubuntu for an external USB memory, without any affection to HDD.

<Ubuntu Version> 10.04 LTS 32bit

<Trials>
* Dividing USB mem into three partitions, formatting with ext4, locating grub in USB mem (/dev/sdb)
  ... ext4-fs error, very unstable
* Same partition, formatting with ReiserFS (grub is same)
  ... ReiserFS error, very unstable
* Same partition, formatting with ext2 (grub is same)
  ... ext2-fs error, less than ext4, but fatal
* Using USB mem as one partition, formatting with ext4 (grub is same)
  ... slightly stable, but consequently boot failure with ext4-fs error
* same partition above (one partition), ext4, boot loader at /dev/sda
  ... same as above (not successful)

  I inspected using USB memory check tools in Windows environment and confirmed there are no errors. Actually, it is no problem to use after re-formatting as FAT32 after these attempts.

  I suppose this problem stems from some affinity between ThinkPad (possibly BIOS) and this USB external memory. I should have tried with other compters or other USB memory, but I had no time. I am operating now latest Ubuntu at this ThinkPad using entire HDD.

[Motin (motin)]

I get the same when trying to run my (cloned) system from a usb hard drive. Running the system in VirtualBox works fine - no ext4 errors there...

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Original reporter deactivated his account -> Invalid.