Comment 0 for bug 539467

Using Lucid on my laptop, I see errors like this in dmesg quite frequently (every few hours):

Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460608] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x50000 action 0xe frozen
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460618] ata1.00: irq_stat 0x00400000, PHY RDY changed
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460627] ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg CommWake }
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460635] ata1.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460649] ata1.00: cmd 60/08:00:97:23:44/00:00:01:00:00/40 tag 0 ncq 4096 in
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460652] res 40/00:04:97:23:44/00:00:01:00:00/40 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error)
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460669] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.460681] ata1: hard resetting link
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.523336] ata2: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x50000 action 0xe frozen
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.523346] ata2: irq_stat 0x00400000, PHY RDY changed
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.523355] ata2: SError: { PHYRdyChg CommWake }
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42987.523368] ata2: hard resetting link
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42988.202586] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42988.205443] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42988.205459] ata1: EH complete
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42988.280089] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42988.285567] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/100
Mar 14 23:00:09 chris-laptop kernel: [42988.289370] ata2: EH complete

Every couple of days, this results in data corruption and my filesystem being remounted read-only:

[ 6148.305806] Aborting journal on device sda1-8.
[ 6148.325011] EXT4-fs error (device sda1): ext4_journal_start_sb: Detected aborted journal
[ 6148.325018] EXT4-fs (sda1): Remounting filesystem read-only
[ 6148.326702] journal commit I/O error
[ 6148.330975] EXT4-fs error (device sda1) in ext4_reserve_inode_write: Journal has aborted
[ 6148.462572] __ratelimit: 15 callbacks suppressed

Those messages generally appear at the end of dmesg after the event, just after the "hard resetting link" message. I then have to boot a live CD and manually run fsck, as I can no longer boot the laptop.

This is happening every couple of days generally, although it happened 3 times in one day last Thursday.

I did contemplate it being a hardware issue, but I tried running the kernel from Karmic for a couple of days, and that worked ok without a single error message

ProblemType: Bug
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: chr1s 4010 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: chr1s 4010 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf6afc000 irq 21'
   Mixer name : 'Intel G45 DEVCTG'
   Components : 'HDA:111d76b2,10280263,00100302 HDA:80862802,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 22
   Simple ctrls : 11
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'U0x46d0x9a4'/'USB Device 0x46d:0x9a4 at usb-0000:00:1a.7-3.3, high speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB046d:09a4'
   Controls : 2
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card1.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
   Capabilities: cvolume cvolume-joined cswitch cswitch-joined penum
   Capture channels: Mono
   Limits: Capture 0 - 14
   Mono: Capture 0 [0%] [23.75dB] [on]
Date: Tue Mar 16 10:07:41 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Frequency: Once a day.
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=762f3439-67ac-4828-aa94-caf2a2ba0f9a
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E5500
Package: linux-image-2.6.32-16-generic 2.6.32-16.25
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-16-generic root=UUID=4ce5e12b-6e82-4fa4-90ff-7d9859d7504e ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
Regression: Yes
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.32
Reproducible: No
SourcePackage: linux
TestedUpstream: No
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic x86_64
dmi.bios.date: 11/05/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A15
dmi.board.name: 0DW635
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA15:bd11/05/2009:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE5500:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0DW635:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E5500
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.