ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer hangs + drops off network CONSTANTLY

[Bails303]

My ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer hangs and drops off my network CONSTANTLY. Nothing seems to work and I'm desperate to achieve stability.

The time it takes for the ReadyNAS to hang and then drop out changes from time to time, but you can bet your house on the fact that, sooner or later, my ReadyNAS will hang, drop off my network, and then need to be manually shut down and restarted in order to try again. Sometimes (many times!), when I've manually shut down the ReadyNAS and then restarted it, it will even hang while just booting or when it tries re-syncing the X-RAID2 volume. It's really become a farcical process.

At all relevant times I have fully updated my ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer with the correct Radiator firmware. Similarly, I have also maintained the latest updates of the Raidar software for both my PC (running Windows 7 Ultimate x64) and MacBook Air (running Snow Leopard). I've tried running it with all services off. I've tried running it both with and without the "performance tweak" of enabling jumbo frames.

I've tried re-installing the latest firmware; and even Factory Resetting the ReadyNAS and then trying everything from scratch. Nothing works - the thing just seems to want to hang. If I get lucky, the thing remains connected and stable enough to get a few GB's worth of data across to it before it hangs. I then need to switch it off manually and then wait a while to turn it back on and try again. And so the cycle continues.

I am the only user of my network. All i want to do is use the ReadyNAS as a media server in my lounge room. The X-RAID2 volume is made up of four 1 TB Seagate drives.

In a desperate effort to achieve network stability (ie. keep the ReadyNAS from hanging), I've bought several Netgear products over the months (shortly after I'd already bought a Billion 7800N router). All such products were linked from the "Related Products" tab on the official Pro Pioneer product page at one time or another, so I thought maybe they would work with the NAS better. These products have included:

Netgear WNDR3700
Netgear WNHDE111
Netgear WNDA3100

None have worked in making the ReadyNAS connection to my network more reliable.

I have bought network cables galore. Both cross-over ones and normal ones. No help. I've tried connected the ReadyNAS directly to my PC and it still hangs sooner or later.
I am simply growing tired of this problem and, frankly, a bit resentful at Netgear as a consequence of the money i've thrown at it and the amount of time i've wasted on it. The joke really does seem to be on me.

I have tried to get all my Netgear products to work via a Billion 7800N router as the DHCP server. I have also spent some time trying to get everything to work without that router; using it as my internet gateway only, with my 3700 assigning DHCP leases and controlling everything. No cigar.

I've tried ALL suggestions in both the FAQ and forum threads that I can find. None seem to help.

Is this a case of needing a dedicated switch (yet another Netgear device purchase), or am i missing something simple? If anyone can help, I'd be much appreciative. This issue is so frustrating. :/



My setup is as follows:

PC > Billion 7800N router (providing internet and DHCP service) > Netgear WNDR3700 router (via cat 6 cross-over cables from the Billion because i can't use EWAN to connect to the internet) > ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer

From the WNDR3700, I'm running another PC, a PS3 and an Apple TV. None of these devices have any trouble accessing the internet, which leads me to believe the 3700 is functioning properly as a router.

[Bails303]

(Hmm... Sorry for such a long post, above. I guess my extreme frustration translated into a long description/rant...)

Anyway, I just checked through the system.log file after 'downloading all logs' via Frontview (for the first time, i should add). The following message appears (and is sometimes repeated a few times) before each apparent hang time:

Nov 28 19:56:12 ReadyNAS avahi-daemon[2362]: Invalid query packet.

So it seems my problems might relate to 'invalid query packets'.

Can anyone please tell me what this means?

Is it something I can fix with the equipment i already have (say, by fixing a static address for the ReadyNAS somehow), or might it mean one of my routers isn't a compatible switch/gateway for the purposes of the ReadyNAS?

Again, sorry for such a massive first post!

[dbott67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avahi_%28software%29

Avahi is a free Zeroconf implementation, including a system for multicast DNS/DNS-SD service discovery. It allows programs to publish and discover services and hosts running on a local network with no specific configuration. For example, you can plug into a network and Avahi instantly finds printers to print to, files to look at and people to talk to, as well as advertising the network services running on your machine. It is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

What version of firmware are you currently running (4.2.5, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8)?

Some folks have experienced network drop-outs due to this: http://home.bott.ca/webserver/?p=260. You may want to try disabling DLNA Auto scan, if it applies, as well as check the NTP settings as per the comment at the bottom of the above link.

Also, did you (or the reseller) upgrade the RAM? If so, you may want to try running the RAM memory test a couple of times (or swap the old memory back in for a while to see if the hangs continue). You can access the Memory Test via the Diagnostics Menu here:

http://home.bott.ca/webserver/?p=252

Failing that, a failing drive can cause very strange issues. Check the SMART status for each drive, but keep in mind that they are not very thorough. My advice would be to power down, remove each drive and then run a then use the vendor tools to check for errors. Be sure to label the disks so that you can return them to their original locations:

faq.php#How_can_I_verify_that_my_disk_is_bad%3F

[Bails303]

Thanks for your fast response and those links! It's a relief to discover i wasn't the only one.

I have now disabled both the DLNA and NTP update services, and will let you know if there are further problems.

I updated to the newest RAIDiator 4.2.8 as soon as you released it the other day. When the NAS kept hanging after that, i gave up in despair and posted my problem.

The RAM was upgraded by me after i took the time to find sticks that were compatible with the NAS in accordance with your FAQ section on RAM modules. If the hang problem persists after taking the above action, i'll look into ruling out the RAM as an issue.

Cheers.

[petespee]

I have had this problem as well since upgrading to 4.2.8.

Readynas Pro Pioneer drops off the network and will not respond to anything including PING.

It requires a HARD reboot to get back.

I'm going to downgrade to 4.2.7 to see if that helps (I did not have the trouble under that firmware)

[mcdavis]

Yes, I've had this issue since 4.2.8 as well. System never crashed on 4.2.7, but 4.2.8 and 2 of these in 3 weeks!

1. I did note NTP errors in some of the downloaded logs, so I've disabled the NTP thing.

2. I did not have the ReadyDLNA activated, so it can't be that! (I don't think...the service is disabled)

3. I do have 4GB of RAM...I also think the sticks I added were compatible...

4. SMART status looks great...between 7 and 19 start/stops, that's it!

-mark

[Bails303]

Well i can tell you it's still happening to me, too. Even after a factory reset.

Once i'd uploaded my music and commenced a media rescan (so that my PS3 could detect and identify the files stored on the ReadyNAS), the NAS hangs after a few minutes of scanning. Then once it hangs, I need to do a forced shutdown or a power switch-off at the back. When i turn the power back on and let it boot up, it hangs not long after a quota check.

I've left the auto-update settings unchecked. The problem remains.

I'm pretty sure this was often happening for me under 4.2.7 too.

[bollar]

It's possibly unrelated, but I have a Pro Business that has been hanging regularly for several months. When I get back to the machine in January, I will try a version older than .5

See my sig for details.

[petespee]

Did it again.

Just drops off the network and requires a cold reboot. And this is after I downgraded to 4.2.7.

HHHHEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPP!

I would hate to start considering my Microsoft Home server my PRIMARY server because the Microsoft Product "Just Works". What a strange thought.

[bollar]

My 4.2.4 installation has stayed up for a day now, which is actually a long time for me. Unfortunately, a downgrade from 4.2.7 will likely require a factory default, so I don't recommend you try it.

[petespee]

I see that you don't recommend ReadyNas products.

I'm not ready to give up on them yet, but if this problem continues to happen I will certainly be switching my backup (Windows Home Server) for my primary and treating my ReadyNas as the backup.

For all the mud slung at Microsoft, the Windows Home Server product has been bulletproof for me. It's based on the enterprise tested Windows Server 2003 but without all the unnecessary overhead for big installations.

Works great with Windows 7 as well -- libraries work perfectly. (if only iTunes would fall in line!!)


In my last attempt to fix this thing, I've turned off ALL streaming services, ALL filesharing except SMB, and turned Jumbo Frames off. Hopefully it will work, but then again if it works as it is now hobbled, I should have just bought a cheaper box for my drives and used USB.

A bit disappointing we haven't heard from any tech support people on this one....

[bollar]

For all the mud slung at Microsoft, the Windows Home Server product has been bulletproof for me. It's based on the enterprise tested Windows Server 2003 but without all the unnecessary overhead for big installations.

[snip]

A bit disappointing we haven't heard from any tech support people on this one....

Yes, I ran Win 2K3 server before I switched to Infrant for NAS in 2006. It was an extremely reliable system, but was more than I needed and I wasn't happy with making my own RAID arrays and the limitations associated with vanilla RAID.

Now my network is mostly Mac and I run a couple of OS X 10.6 servers, which I find even more robust than W2K Server.

As for tech support, this isn't an official channel, so I don't have any expectation that the Jedi can pitch in on every problem reported in this forum.

[petespee]

Funny I used to use Mac computers for about two years (until last year). I switched back to windows because of all the issues I had with AFP and the Mac file system.

It may be me (I'm a dumbass) but I could never get media sharing on a network server to work properly. That is, one network directory for photos, music, videos and all being used by multiple users on several computers using iTunes, iPhoto etc.

All sorts of permission issues (can we just not share ownership?) and finicky problems with the iLife suite (no, I don't want five users on three computers to look for faces in 200,000 photos on a network at the same time) turned it from "It just works" to "It's junk" in my mind.

Not saying that Windows has made be religious again.... but sharing media is a whole lot easier now.

[mcdavis]

Yup, mine is down again...4.2.8 lasts about a week or so before the network goes down.

BEWARE of 4.2.8.

I never had any issues prior to this latest firmware upgrade.

I really hope someone at NETGEAR is reading this...you have an issue on your hands and you need to fix it immediately.

Note, a lot of us use the NAS for very critical applications and we cannot accept nor tolerate this type of unreliable behavior.

-mark

[rjwerth]

Well, I think there a a bunch of people out there with no problems whatsoever, so it must be a configuration thing.

I have a 1.5TB Pro with stock memory running 4.2.8.

I am using jumbo frames AND LACP teaming. I am running the media server.

I have had 0 issues with this configuration!

Hope this helps you out.