Drive not unmounted

[vrapp]

In my RT-N66U, the icon representing external USB drive is red, apparently because it did not or could not unmount the volume.

 

[huotg01]

In my RT-N66U, the icon representing external USB drive is red, apparently because it did not or could not unmount the volume.

You don't say much about your disk, but if it is a ntfs disk, just try to unplufg it from the router, plug it to your pc and run chkdsk /f on it.

See if there is any problems reported and corrected. If it is not a ntfs, please give us more information.

 

[vrapp]

Not NTFS, it's ext3.

Yes, i can scan the disk manually from ssh command line, actually even without physical removing/plugging back but by using "safely remove disk" in router's UI - "External USB disk status" - tab "Information" (I wonder if I should be able to scan "removed "disk?)

UI is also supposed to make possible automatic periodic scanning, which in this case won't work.

 

[huotg01]

Not NTFS, it's ext3.

Yes, i can scan the disk manually from ssh command line, actually even without physical removing/plugging back but by using "safely remove disk" in router's UI - "External USB disk status" - tab "Information" (I wonder if I should be able to scan "removed "disk?)

UI is also supposed to make possible automatic periodic scanning, which in this case won't work.

Again you don't say much about what you did, and didn't.

Usually the debug could start with the classic: ""Have you tried to turn it on and off again""?

 

[octopus]

Usally when a disk don't unmount is when a service using it, eg ftp, samba, logs and others. Make sure all that is not connected. After you can unmount your disk.

Octopus

 

[huotg01]

Usally when a disk don't unmount is when a service using it, eg ftp, samba, logs and others. Make sure all that is not connected. After you can unmount your disk.

Octopus

That's the reason for the ""Have you tried to turn it on and off again""?
just to check if it is a real problem, or an incident...

 

[vrapp]

Again you don't say much about what you did, and didn't.

I tried it right now in ssh, and umount worked, and after that mount already did not show the device as mounted, but still attempt to fsck says "device in use".

======================
ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-N66U_3.0.0.4 Sat Dec 27 18:19:35 UTC 2014
admin@HomeLan:/tmp/home/root# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type squashfs (ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
devfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,noatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
/dev/mtdblock4 on /jffs type jffs2 (rw,noatime)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/sda1 type ext3 (rw,nodev,noatime,data=ordered)

admin@HomeLan:/tmp/home/root# umount /dev/sda1

admin@HomeLan:/tmp/home/root# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type squashfs (ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
devfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,noatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
/dev/mtdblock4 on /jffs type jffs2 (rw,noatime)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)

admin@HomeLan:/tmp/home/root# fsck.ext3 /dev/sda1
e2fsck 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
/dev/sda1 is in use.
e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.
================

I was able to initiate manual scan by unplugging/replugging the disk; after which it became /dev/sdc1 (previously it was /dev/sda1), then issuing umount /dev/sdc1, and then fsck.ext3 /dev/sdc1 worked. Here's the log of all that:

Jan 19 20:19:47 dropbear[29566]: Child connection from 192.168.1.2:58043
Jan 19 20:19:54 dropbear[29566]: Password auth succeeded for 'admin' from 192.168.1.2:58043
Jan 19 20:20:57 rc_service: httpd 421:notify_rc start_diskscan
Jan 19 20:20:57 disk monitor: start...
Jan 19 20:20:57 disk monitor: done
Jan 19 20:21:07 disk monitor: be idle
Jan 19 20:26:43 rc_service: httpd 421:notify_rc start_autodet
Jan 19 20:26:43 kernel: autodet uses obsolete (PF_INET,SOCK_PACKET)
Jan 19 20:27:23 rc_service: httpd 421:notify_rc stop_nasapps
Jan 19 20:27:23 FTP Server: daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:27:24 Samba Server: smb daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:27:53 rc_service: httpd 421:notify_rc stop_nasapps
Jan 19 20:27:53 FTP Server: daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:27:53 Samba Server: smb daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:11 kernel: usb 1-1.2: USB disconnect, address 4
Jan 19 20:28:11 rc_service: hotplug 29649:notify_rc restart_nasapps
Jan 19 20:28:11 FTP Server: daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:11 Samba Server: smb daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:12 rc_service: hotplug 29653:notify_rc restart_nasapps
Jan 19 20:28:12 rc_service: waitting "restart_nasapps" via ...
Jan 19 20:28:12 Samba Server: daemon is started
Jan 19 20:28:13 FTP Server: daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:14 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
Jan 19 20:28:14 kernel: usb 1-1.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 19 20:28:14 kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jan 19 20:28:14 Samba Server: smb daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:15 Samba Server: daemon is started
Jan 19 20:28:16 kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access Seagate Expansion Desk 0712 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Spinning up disk......ready
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 488378645 4096-byte hardware sectors (2000399 MB)
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 488378645 4096-byte hardware sectors (2000399 MB)
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sdc: sdc1
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Jan 19 20:28:19 kernel: EXT3-fs: starting recovery.
Jan 19 20:28:25 kernel: kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
Jan 19 20:28:25 kernel: EXT3 FS on sdc1, internal journal
Jan 19 20:28:25 kernel: EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
Jan 19 20:28:25 kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Jan 19 20:28:25 hotplug[29714]: USB ext3 fs at /dev/sdc1 mounted on /tmp/mnt/sdc1
Jan 19 20:28:25 rc_service: hotplug 29714:notify_rc restart_nasapps
Jan 19 20:28:25 FTP Server: daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:25 Samba Server: smb daemon is stopped
Jan 19 20:28:25 Samba Server: daemon is started
Jan 19 20:30:35 rc_service: httpd 421:notify_rc start_diskscan
Jan 19 20:30:35 disk monitor: start...
Jan 19 20:30:35 disk monitor: done
Jan 19 20:30:45 disk monitor: be idle
=========

This is all stable effects and already survived several router restarts. I recently changed filesystem from ntfs to ext3, and I think this was happening since then. NTFS it was able to handle.

 

[Hexabion]

My USB HDD does that every now and then even though the HDD shows to be dandy and fine when I run e2fschk -f on it. I think it might be that the boot-up/mount-process tries to scan it too quickly, or has a timeout which is too low when waiting for the disk.

Maybe there's some sort of NVRAM or .conf setting to avoid the scan on each boot, or set a longer timeout or delayed start of scan+mount.

Thats my two cents.

PS: im on FW 376_49_2 - N66u

 

[huotg01]

I tried it right now in ssh, and umount worked, and after that mount already did not show the device as mounted, but still attempt to fsck says "device in use".

[...]

This is all stable effects and already survived several router restarts. I recently changed filesystem from ntfs to ext3, and I think this was happening since then. NTFS it was able to handle.

I'm very interested by what you did...because I was about to do the same!

I now have a 4TB WD usb3 formatted ntfs attached to my ac68u. Most of the times, when I restart the router, the disk will be checked before being mounted (it takes time), and it will stay "red circled", but with no other bad effects. I was thinking reformating the disk in ext4 to get rid of this small problem.

I think we will have to find out what is going on ...

How was formatted the usb disk ? (here is some information: https://www.asuswrt.eu/how-to-format-usb-drive/)

 

[vrapp]

> How was formatted the usb disk ?

from ssh shell; don't remember the command already, I'm much more Windows person than Linux

Back to the original problem - I have to report that it's gone, after some more manipulations, now the UI is able to unmount, check, and remount back as it should.

Since you are going to do the same - here's some experience... while I had ntfs, I had problems with the backup, see http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=11750. It was very consistent, i.e. any backup from any computer resulted in this problem in 10-15 minutes after start. Looks like it choked up somehow. After conversion, this problem seems to have gone; however, about 1-2 weeks after conversion checking the disk revealed that quite a few files were corrupted, no idea how it happened. I was able to repair the filesystem, now everything is clean.