kjournald2 writing to disk every few seconds

[Ralf]

As described in summary, something is wrinting to or reading from the harddisk every few seconds. I've installed Kubuntu Karmic 64Bit completley new (no version-upgrade) and used ext4 for / and for the seperate /home-partition.

Searched forums ubuntuforums.org and ubuntuusers.de and found out, that there has been a problem with this in older releases of ubuntu, but than the problem was solved.

So it seems that in Karmic using ext4 the problem is back again.

There is another bug report on this topic (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/442443), but it seems to be "lost in space" ;-) Maybe it's because it was not complete right from the start.

I will add the some output-files (uname, etc.) to this bug report, hopefully it will help finding the problem.

If you need more information, please let me know. I'm not a developer, but I will do testing and more to help solving the problem.

Regards,

Ralf

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC262 Analog [ALC262 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ralf 2006 F.... knotify4
                      ralf 2064 F.... kmix
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf6200000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Nvidia MCP78 HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0262,144dc042,00100202 HDA:10de0003,10de0101,00100000'
   Controls : 28
   Simple ctrls : 17
DKDisksMonitorLog: Monitoring activity from the disks daemon. Press Ctrl+C to cancel.
Date: Mon Nov 16 13:09:52 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=367871d9-3591-4291-9f88-d5fe4264e602
HotplugNewDevices:

HotplugNewMounts:

InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
MachineType: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. R510/P510
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic 2.6.31-14.48
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=b7d1eb3c-e227-464b-8fb9-82874a0acce9 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.24
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
Symptom: storage
UdevMonitorLog:
 monitor will print the received events for:
 UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 09/26/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
dmi.bios.version: 07LI.MP00.20080926.SCY
dmi.board.name: R510/P510
dmi.board.vendor: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
dmi.board.version: Not Applicable
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologiesLtd.:bvr07LI.MP00.20080926.SCY:bd09/26/2008:svnSAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.,LTD.:pnR510/P510:pvrNotApplicable:rvnSAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.,LTD.:rnR510/P510:rvrNotApplicable:cvnSAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.,LTD.:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: R510/P510
dmi.product.version: Not Applicable
dmi.sys.vendor: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.

[Ralf (ralf-weyer)]

Added log-file with the output of iotop.

[Ralf (ralf-weyer)]

Any news on this topic? Anything I can do, test, whatever?

Regards, Ralf

[Marián Kadaňka (marian.kadanka)]

I can confirm.
Running clean install of Kubuntu 9.10, 2.6.31-15-generic kernel, amd64 architecture, ext4 root partition.
Something writes to disk every few seconds (even on kdm login screen) with no user activity at all.

[Ralf (ralf-weyer)]

So after nearly 4 weeks I'm asking again, any news on this topic?

[Johann Glaser (johann-glaser)]

Same here on a fresh install of 9.10 AMD64 using ext4. Enabling block operation debugging with
  echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/block_dump
There are lots of writes to blocks by kjournald2 and pdflush every few second in dmesg (and thus /var/log/kern.log). This is only intermixed seldomly by evolution, firefox and rsyslogd dirtying inodes (not blocks).

I'm a bit concerned on the life expectancy of my hard disk and data. :-(

[Roland Hughes (original-seasoned-geek)]

I have this exact same problem with 32-bit Karmic. It grinds one of my hard drives for nearly a minute solid when it starts, then it keeps cycling, going silent for 5-10 seconds, grinding for 30, silent, grind...until it burns through what seems like 5 minutes.

[adriankoooo (adriankoooo)]

I can confirm this bug too with a clean install of Karmic minima-server! Any fix?

[VladV (vlad-volkov)]

I can confirm the bug too.

2.6.31-20-generic-pae #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 06:25:51 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

After enabling(block operations debugging (echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/block_dump) I see lots of messages like these in kern.log:
[1052950.193581] pdflush(45): WRITE block 26266552 on md2
[1052950.193589] pdflush(45): WRITE block 26266560 on md2
[1052959.538915] kjournald2(724): WRITE block 26266560 on md2
[1052959.538951] kjournald2(724): WRITE block 26262472 on md2

md2 is a software RAID partition formatted as ext4 and mounted as /.
Another ext4 partition is mounted as /home and is occasionally written to by kjournald2, though much less frequently.

After remounting root partion with increased commit delay (/etc/fstab: /dev/md2 / ext4 defaults,noatime,errors=remount-ro,commit=15 0 0) the disk activity ceased significantly.

I guess, the activity is caused by the daemon flushing ext4 journal, though I wonder what it writes there that often.

[Daniel Beitler (beitler)]

Same issue here on 64-bit Karmic, ext4 root partition.

# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.31-20-generic (buildd@crested) (gcc version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu8) ) #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 04:38:19 UTC 2010

[leftoflexo (beerpoweredhooligan)]

did you try disabling hal disk polling? you dont really need it since devkit is also polling every 2 seconds. i disabled mine by going to /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-storage and renaming hald-addon-storage by placing an extra character at the end then rebooting.
another thing i noticed is that i had a smilar problem and it was greatly reduced by reformatting to ex3 and installing on that instead of ext4. for some reason ext4 caused much heavier system lag during the periods of disk access every few seconds. if you dont mind not having a journaling filesystem you could always use ext2 and see how that works for you. honestly ive found ext2 to be more stable for me and i dont mind the consequences of not having journaling.

this problem may be related to these:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/75295
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/85695
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/27323

it's either a hal problem, a kernel problem, or both. no matter to me though, i've noticed a similar set of symptoms on different computers and these steps have always either stopped the problem for me or reduced the severity of it to where the system is usable and the disk activity becomes less frequent and heavy. it definitely extends the life of my drives past what it would be with constant grinding.

[Marián Kadaňka (marian.kadanka)]

My problem has nothing to do with HAL disk polling, since I completely removed HAL, but the disk activity continued exactly as before. I changed /etc/fstab to commit=30 as VladV suggested and it's quite less annoying now, but writes still persist even if there is no user activity at all.

[Crashit (johanschutten)]

Same problem here, using Kubuntu 10.04 LTS with ext4 and a brand new hard disk. I noticed it also on my laptop.

Running iotop, jbd2/sda1-8 does seem to be very frequently writing to the disk. But there are also some writes that aren't logged. Hope this problem can be solved soon!

[Matthew Holtz (matthew-holtz)]

I also have this bug on 10.04 netbook release. I am running the just released 2.6.34 kernel with ext4. I have also run iotop and have the same results as Crashit. This severely hampers my battery life by preventing the disk from spinning down. It's also annoying to hear the noise every 5 seconds.

Is this a kernel bug? If so, are the kernel developers aware?

[Santosh Dahale (santosh-dahale)]

I have the same issue with Ubuntu 10.04 64bit install on Sony Vaio laptop. The continuous blink improved a bit with putting commit=600 in /etc/fstab.

but a fix required

[dinar qurbanov (qdinar)]

related "question": https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/44673

[m4cph1sto (dlreid)]

I experience this problem on Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora, 64-bit and 32-bit. So it seems to be a kernel bug? The problem was reduced by reformatting all my drives from ext4 to ext3, but it is not eliminated. I've gotten it to the point where Iotop shows gconfd-2 and kjournald writing to disk simultaneously about once every 2 minutes -- just long enough for my hdd to continually spin down then spin back up again, then down, then up... In my opinion this is a serious bug!

[Roland Hughes (original-seasoned-geek)]

This problem seems to be helped/aggravated by other packages installed.
I don't know which packages. I just know that when I installed 10.10
Kubuntu, like you, I only let one partition be that
icky-nasty-unsupported-anywhere-ext4 and put the rest as either ext3 or
FAT-32. Since I was working on different things, many of my regular
packages were not installed, but additional packages were.

dpkg --get-selections > current_list.txt

a2ps install
abiword install
abiword-common install
abiword-plugin-grammar install
abiword-plugin-mathview install
acpi-support install
acpid install
adduser install
afio install
akonadi-server install
akregator install
alsa-base install
alsa-utils install
amarok install
amarok-common install
amarok-utils install
anacron install
antiword install
app-install-data install
apparmor install
apparmor-utils install
apport install
apport-kde install
apport-symptoms install
apsfilter install
apt install
apt-transport-https install
apt-utils install
apt-xapian-index install
apturl-common install
apturl-kde install
ark install
aspell install
aspell-en install
at install
atris deinstall
autotools-dev install
avahi-autoipd install
avahi-daemon install
avahi-utils install
base-files install
base-passwd install
bash install
bash-completion install
bc install
bcmwl-modaliases install
bind9-host install
binfmt-support install
binutils install
blt install
bluedevil install
bluez install
bluez-alsa install
bluez-cups install
bogofilter install
bogofilter-bdb install
bogofilter-common install
boinc install
boinc-client install
boinc-manager install
brltty install
bsdmainutils install
bsdutils install
btanks install
btanks-data install
buffer install
build-essential install
busybox-initramfs install
busybox-static install
byobu install
bzip2 install
ca-certificates install
ca-certificates-java install
cabextract install
cdparanoia install
cdrdao install
chromium-browser install
chromium-browser-inspector install
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg install
clamav install
clamav-base install
clamav-daemon install
clamav-freshclam install
cmake install
cmake-data install
codelite install
codelite-plugins install
comerr-dev install
command-not-found install
command-not-found-data install
console-setup install
console-terminus install
consolekit install
coreutils install
cpio install
cpp install
cpp-4.4 install
cpu-checker install
cream install
cron install
cups install
cups-bsd install
cups-client install
cups-common install
cups-driver-gutenprint install
cups-ppdc install
dash install
dbus install
dbus-x11 install
dc install
debconf install
debconf-i18n install
debhelper install
debianutils install
default-jdk install
default-jre install
default-jre-headless install
defoma ...

[Roland Hughes (original-seasoned-geek)]

My hard drives seem pretty normal now. But, like you, when I had other
packages installed and multiple ext4 partitions I thought they were
going to shatter from the erratic spinning.

If you are _still_ seeing the problem, perhaps you can run the DKPG
command and compare your list to the one I have looking for things you
have installed that I don't. Try removing them one by one (and probably
rebooting after each remove) to see if/when your disks quiet down.

--
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com
http://www.infiniteexposure.net

No U.S. troops have ever lost their lives defending our ethanol
reserves.

On Sat, 2011-02-05 at 15:49 +0000, seasoned_geek wrote:

> This problem seems to be helped/aggravated by other packages installed.
> I don't know which packages. I just know that when I installed 10.10
> Kubuntu, like you, I only let one partition be that
> icky-nasty-unsupported-anywhere-ext4 and put the rest as either ext3 or
> FAT-32. Since I was working on different things, many of my regular
> packages were not installed, but additional packages were.
>
> dpkg --get-selections > current_list.txt
>
> a2ps install
> abiword install
> abiword-common install
> abiword-plugin-grammar install
> abiword-plugin-mathview install
> acpi-support install
> acpid install
> adduser install
> afio install
> akonadi-server install
> akregator install
> alsa-base install
> alsa-utils install
> amarok install
> amarok-common install
> amarok-utils install
> anacron install
> antiword install
> app-install-data install
> apparmor install
> apparmor-utils install
> apport install
> apport-kde install
> apport-symptoms install
> apsfilter install
> apt install
> apt-transport-https install
> apt-utils install
> apt-xapian-index install
> apturl-common install
> apturl-kde install
> ark install
> aspell install
> aspell-en install
> at install
> atris deinstall
> autotools-dev install
> avahi-autoipd install
> avahi-daemon install
> avahi-utils install
> base-files install
> base-passwd install
> bash install
> bash-completion install
> bc install
> bcmwl-modaliases install
> bind9-host install
> binfmt-support install
> binutils install
> blt install
> bluedevil install
> bluez install
> bluez-alsa install
> bluez-cups install
> bogofilter install
> bogofilter-bdb install
> bogofilter-common install
> boinc install
> boinc-client install
> boinc-manager install
> brltty install
> bsdmainutils install
> bsdutils install
> btanks install
> btanks-data install
> buffer install
> build-essential install
> busybox-initramfs install
> busybox-static install
> byobu install
> bzip2 install
> ca-certificates install
> ca-certificates-java install
> cabextract install
> cdparanoia install
> cdrdao install
> chromium-browser install
> chromium-browser-inspector install
> chromium-cod...

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Roland Hughes (original-seasoned-geek)]

We all had to switch to OpenSuSE to save our hard drives.

On Thu, 2011-07-14 at 18:37 +0000, Brad Figg wrote:

> This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so
> is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported
> series, please file a new bug.
>
> This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the
> Ubuntu Kernel Team.
>
> ** Changed in: linux (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Won't Fix
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/483569
>
> Title:
> kjournald2 writing to disk every few seconds
>
> Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
> Won't Fix
>
> Bug description:
> As described in summary, something is wrinting to or reading from the
> harddisk every few seconds. I've installed Kubuntu Karmic 64Bit
> completley new (no version-upgrade) and used ext4 for / and for the
> seperate /home-partition.
>
> Searched forums ubuntuforums.org and ubuntuusers.de and found out,
> that there has been a problem with this in older releases of ubuntu,
> but than the problem was solved.
>
> So it seems that in Karmic using ext4 the problem is back again.
>
> There is another bug report on this topic
> (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/442443), but it seems to be
> "lost in space" ;-) Maybe it's because it was not complete right from
> the start.
>
> I will add the some output-files (uname, etc.) to this bug report,
> hopefully it will help finding the problem.
>
> If you need more information, please let me know. I'm not a developer,
> but I will do testing and more to help solving the problem.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ralf
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: amd64
> ArecordDevices:
> **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC262 Analog [ALC262 Analog]
> Subdevices: 1/1
> Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> AudioDevicesInUse:
> USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
> /dev/snd/controlC0: ralf 2006 F.... knotify4
> ralf 2064 F.... kmix
> CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
> Card0.Amixer.info:
> Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf6200000 irq 22'
> Mixer name : 'Nvidia MCP78 HDMI'
> Components : 'HDA:10ec0262,144dc042,00100202 HDA:10de0003,10de0101,00100000'
> Controls : 28
> Simple ctrls : 17
> DKDisksMonitorLog: Monitoring activity from the disks daemon. Press Ctrl+C to cancel.
> Date: Mon Nov 16 13:09:52 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=367871d9-3591-4291-9f88-d5fe4264e602
> HotplugNewDevices:
>
> HotplugNewMounts:
>
> InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
> MachineType: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. R510/P510
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
> Package: linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic 2.6.31-14.48
> ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=b7d1eb3c-e227-464b-8fb9-82874a0acce9 ro quiet splash
> ProcEnviron:
> LANGUAGE=
> LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu...