Ubuntu 9.04, 32-bit ext4 file system suddenly becomes readonly

[Pawan]

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 with ext4 file systems from scratch. Things were working fine. But suddenly in last 5 days, my entire file system is turning readonly at random. Only cure is to reboot and lose all my unsaved work. After reboot, things work properly for another 8-10 hours before the damn file system turns readonly again!!

Has anyone tested this ext4 filesystem thoroughly? I saw a number of references to this - but everyone else is blaming it on 64-bit or RAM issues. My machine is in perfect condition. It has two other partitions where it runs Windows XP for days without any issues as well as previous version of Ubuntu for days without any issues.

If this issue is not going to be fixed months after release, I will have to revert back to previous version of Ubuntu or back to XP.

[Pawan (pawan-pinger)]

One cannot even use ubuntu-bug linux command in this state because once the file system is readonly, pretty much all applications start misbehaving!

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Pawan,

Are you still using an ext4 filesystem? If so, do you still see this issue with the latest 2.6.28-15.48 Jaunty kernel? If so, I've backported some additional ext4 related patches and put some test kernels at:

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

There are currently an amd64 test kernel there but I'll be adding i386 once they finish building. Please let us know your results if you are able to test. Thanks.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Additionally the latest Karmic 9.10 Alpha kernels are based on 2.6.31 and have had numerous ext4 related patches. ISO CD images are available for testing at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/ .

[Scott Robinson (scott-ubuntu)]

I have this issue occurring Ubuntu 9.10. Typically at times of high system load.

[pacanukeha (c-launchpad-pacanukeha-net)]

This has happened to me several times on a fresh Lucid install.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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