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RT-AC86U - USB 3.0 drive spinning up every 24 hours for... nothing?

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Kusuri

Occasional Visitor
Hello,
I've been troubleshooting an issue I've only recently noticed since last weekend. Trying to figure it out by myself so far, but the window for returning the router is nearing an end (ends this Friday), so I'm looking to others for help...

I've replaced an RT-N66U (which is now working solely as an AP in another room without any disks attached) with an RT-AC86U.
I was already using a My Passport 4TB external HDD (set to hibernate after 10 minutes idle without issues) + 512 MB USB pendrive (as swap) fine with only SMB and FTP enabled (turning Media Server only when needed, as it would result in several random spin-ups throughout the day when a PC or PS4 was on). Download Master was also installed and enabled.

I recall no random spin-ups during periods of inactivity with the setup described above.
I've set the exact same on the RT-AC86U on its USB 3.0 port, except since it has more memory I haven't set-up (or even connected) the swap again.

Recently I've noticed there's always a single spin-up everyday even if I'm not doing anything to access the drive. They appear to always occur at the same time every ~24 hours.
The only thing on the log is basically "spinning up /dev/sda after 24 hours" and "spinning down /dev/sda after 10 minutes."

- I have turned Health Scanner off.
- I've tried both latest official and Merlin firmware (both stable and beta).
- There are no daily cron jobs listed that I can see. None at all, to be exact (checked with "cru l" command via SSH).

I don't know if this means anything but last spin-up was yesterday (16th March) at 23:53.
SSH'ing and navigating through the APPS folder in the router and the asusware.arm folder in the USB drive most files related to DM2 (Download Master) and Lighttpd were modified on the 15th March 23:52. This was after a reset and doing a fresh setup of the USB features.

I'm currently suspecting Download Master (maybe it uses a different version on AC86U or something else that makes it behave differently), so I've disabled it for now.

In the meanwhile (still around 8 hours left before I can more or less confirm if it made any difference) I'm open for ideas/suggestions:
What else could be causing something like this every 24 hours and/or why Download Manager would do it (if it's indeed the culprit).
 
Well now I'm more confused...
It hasn't spun up with Download Master disabled yet, but instead I got Samba-related error messages in the log around the same time (currently set to SMBv2):
Code:
Mar 17 23:54:45 smbd[12922]: [2020/03/17 23:54:45.780728,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:45 smbd[12922]:   No protocol supported !
Mar 17 23:54:46 smbd[12924]: [2020/03/17 23:54:46.810453,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:46 smbd[12924]:   No protocol supported !
Mar 17 23:54:47 smbd[12927]: [2020/03/17 23:54:47.846525,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:47 smbd[12927]:   No protocol supported !
Mar 17 23:54:48 smbd[12929]: [2020/03/17 23:54:48.877390,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:48 smbd[12929]:   No protocol supported !
 
Reboot your computer, Windows caches the negotiated protocol, so if the server changes to a different protocol version, the client will not be able to connect until they are rebooted.
 
Thanks, but I've been almost exclusively accessing it through Solid Explorer on Android (configured to use SMBv2).
There were no errors when I attempted to access it just now and worked fine.

It's just that this message appeared when I wasn't even trying to access anything that is being shared on the AC-86U's attached drive.

The spin-ups had also been happening even when all machines (including mobile phones) were disconnected from the network.
The SMB protocol was set to v2 already since yesterday by the way, even before the first spontaneous spin-up.

I suppose I'll have to wait another 24 hours to see what happens (and if it was a coincidence or not), but I'm puzzled as to why something or the router itself would start SMB everyday on a 24-hour timer.
I was leaning on Download Master doing some kind of daily update/scan since the modification date of its files matched the regular spin-ups....
 
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Well now I'm more confused...
It hasn't spun up with Download Master disabled yet, but instead I got Samba-related error messages in the log around the same time (currently set to SMBv2):
Code:
Mar 17 23:54:45 smbd[12922]: [2020/03/17 23:54:45.780728,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:45 smbd[12922]:   No protocol supported !
Mar 17 23:54:46 smbd[12924]: [2020/03/17 23:54:46.810453,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:46 smbd[12924]:   No protocol supported !
Mar 17 23:54:47 smbd[12927]: [2020/03/17 23:54:47.846525,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:47 smbd[12927]:   No protocol supported !
Mar 17 23:54:48 smbd[12929]: [2020/03/17 23:54:48.877390,  0] smbd/negprot.c:706(reply_negprot)
Mar 17 23:54:48 smbd[12929]:   No protocol supported !
I get these messages from my kid’s MacBook for unknown reasons. No idea why it’s trying SMB1. It’s not even configured to access the router’s share.
 
I get these messages from my kid’s MacBook for unknown reasons. No idea why it’s trying SMB1. It’s not even configured to access the router’s share.
It's definitely weird.

I had Wireshark running by the way and I'm leaning on this being unrelated to the spin-ups that made me start this topic, just a coincidence in timing (it was about 1 minute later, so it was not so exact).

I filtered the Wireshark logging to only show SMB protocol messages and it originated from my desktop PC to the broadcast address. Specifically it was caused by 6x "Get Backup List Request" (don't really know what that is to be honest and why it even decided to do it in that point in time).

It was right before the errors on the log and the only time it happened today, so that's probably the culprit for today's messages.

I'll wait another day, to be sure, then confirming DM's fault I'll look for alternatives (either messing with its files or an Entware route).
 
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Well it's been enough time without the daily spin-ups to confirm that the culprit was indeed Download Master.
Either I didn't notice it with the N66U or something is behaving differently.

As such I'm going give Transmission a try and follow Merlin's guide.
Hopefully it works fine without those issues.

Above all I'm glad it's not really the router's fault and that I didn't have to go outside for a return at a time like this...

Thanks.
 
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