USB hard disk errors followed by kernel WARNING: at /build/buildd/linux-2.6.31/fs/buffer.c:1152 mark_buffer_dirty+0x70/0x90()

[Martin Ling]

There are several other bug reports mentioning this same warning, but none of them seemed to have the same lead-up of previous events so I am filing separately for the moment.

In my case I had just plugged in a USB hard drive with two partitions on it, one ext3 and one NTFS. Both automounted and the contents were displayed in Nautilus. I then clicked into one of the directories on the ext3 partition, the drives vanished, and I got the apport alert. Prior to the warning there are a series of USB, sd and ext3 errors in the log which I will attach.

The drive had worked fine earlier in the day, but it's entirely possible it's faulty.

ProblemType: KernelOops
Annotation: Your system might become unstable now and might need to be restarted.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: martin 2249 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'ICH6'/'Intel ICH6 with STAC9750,51 at irq 16'
   Mixer name : 'SigmaTel STAC9750,51'
   Components : 'AC97a:83847650'
   Controls : 38
   Simple ctrls : 24
Date: Wed Oct 28 23:33:47 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Failure: oops
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=0c8dd32e-dbb1-4309-a8b8-bfcf466f9b15
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude D610
Package: linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic 2.6.31-14.48
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=222f46cf-e3d6-4f14-9bfc-3f4497960a8b ro
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.24
RfKill:

SourcePackage: linux
Tags: kernel-oops
Title: WARNING: at /build/buildd/linux-2.6.31/fs/buffer.c:1152 mark_buffer_dirty+0x70/0x90()
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
WpaSupplicantLog:

dmi.bios.date: 10/02/2005
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A06
dmi.board.name: 0K3879
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA06:bd10/02/2005:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeD610:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0K3879:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude D610
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Martin Ling (martin-launchpad)]

Update - the original USB errors seem to have been the result of a dodgy cable, things are now working fine with a sturdier looking one. I don't know if a kernel warning is the right thing to happen under these circumstances, or if there is still a problem in the error handling path. Please close as invalid if appropriate.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Martin,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 462986

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

    [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Martin Ling (martin-launchpad)]

As noted this seemed to be due to a dodgy cable and is thus pretty much unreproducible.