Solutions Log

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period

Dan — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:38:21 +0000

Issue:
After an updated release of Intel's Matrix Storage Manager [v.8.9.0.1023] and chipset drivers for Windows, you experience unexpected system timeouts, lockups, pausing, or freezing. The following event is recorded in the System event log:

Log Name: System
Source: iaStor
EventID: 9
Level: Error
The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Cause:
The issue is the result of Aggressive Link State Power Management (ALPM) on the PCI-Express bus negotiating a lower power state for the link between the controller and disk when there is no activity. When ALPM works, disk requests are queued, the serial link revived, and the queued requests are sent to the relevant disk; this requires a disk that supports ALPM.

Resolution:
Modify the advanced settings of your active power management scheme in Windows to turn PCI Express Link State Power Management off.

Commentary:
Searching for a solution yielded a number of possibilities.

Setting the value of:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaSTOR\Parameters\PortN\LPMDSTATE 0

as discussed by Derek Seaman did not resolve my issue.

Renaming:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaSTOR\Parameters

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaSTOR\Parameters.dist

as suggested by Paul's Computer Service was also ineffective. At the time I was running the latest set of drivers for my platform. Caveat emptor: the solution I outlined in this article worked for me.

References:
Intel CS-025783 - Possible issues with Windows Vista* and Intel® RAID
Windows 7 Intel SATA/AHCI Lockups
Intel® Matrix Storage Manager Bug

Acronis True Image Home 2010 Freezes During Backup on Windows 7

Dan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:02:15 +0000

Issue:
When running backup jobs in Acronis True Image Home 2010 under Windows Vista or Windows 7, the backup job appears to stall and the operating system becomes unresponsive. The system will encounter a bugcheck condition and recover with an unclean shutdown.

Cause:
From Acronis:

Because of the latest major changes in Windows Vista and Windows 7 native snapshot driver (VolSnap), there were some modifications introduced in Acronis True Image Home 2010 (starting from Build 6029). The Acronis native snapshot driver (snapman) was moved from UpperFilters to LowerFilters to avoid conflicts with VolSnap (which could have lead to backups failure or data corruption in backups). This change may sometimes manifest itself in a freezing Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system on machines with rare software and hardware configurations.

Resolution:
Download an updated SnapAPI build from Acronis. Unpack it and install with the Disable Logging option set. See Acronis KB6529 for the appropriate link.

Commentary: My hardware configuration is not esoteric; my software configuration is equally banal: an Intel Core i7 X58 system with 6GB of RAM, RAID1 on an ICH10R, and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Reference: http://kb.acronis.com/content/6529

Git Subtree Merge and git-svn

Dan — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:02:37 +0000

Issue: Git submodules do not play nicely with git-svn; git subtree merging is a more appropriate strategy for my specific use case.

Resolution: This is my recipe (borrowed heavily from the formal git documentation).

git checkout -b TRY-MERGE master
git remote add -f Bproject /path/to/B
git merge -s ours --no-commit Bproject/master
git read-tree --prefix=dir-B/ -u Bproject/master
git commit -m "Task - JIRA-001 - Merge B project as our subdirectory"
git checkout master
git merge TRY-MERGE master -m "Task - JIRA-001 - Merging subtrees into project."
git-svn dcommit

You may update your local copy from the remote at any time with:

git pull -s subtree Bproject master

Reference: http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/v1.7.0/howto/using-merge-subtree.html

Commit a linear git history to subversion

Dan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:46:44 +0000

Issue: I was recently asked to integrate my local development (which I had done under git management) into our central Subversion server. How to do this while preserving my commit history?

Resolution: After a lot of reading (and an upgrade to git-1.7.0) I found the following recipe to work for me.

git branch master.bak master
git-svn init svn://repo.domain.local/Project/trunk/sub/directory
git-svn fetch
git checkout -b svnrebase git-svn
git-svn rebase
git rebase --root --onto svnrebase master
git-svn dcommit

Reformat and reindent an XML file

Dan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:14:53 +0000

This is easy to accomplish with xmllint and a shell one-liner:

xmllint --format inputfile.xml > outputfile.xml

xinetd per_source limit issues

Dan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:32:34 +0000

Issue:
Users note availability issues when accessing services backed by xinetd (subversion, rsync, etc.)

Identification:
Syslog on the affected server will present multiple lines containing daemon per_source_limit for 0.0.0.0.

Cause:
You have exceeded per_source_limit defaults imposed by your xinetd configuration. Many distributions include per_source limits that may not be suitable for your use case. Evaluate your needs carefully.

Resolution:
Modify the default setting for per_source in /etc/xinetd.conf or modify the service specific configuration (recommended) under /etc/xinet.d. per_source limits may be set as follows:

per_source = 10

per_source may be set to an integer or UNLIMITED (the number represents the number of connections allowed per host). A sensible fixed value is always better than UNLIMITED.

Reference: xinetd.conf(5)

Reset The Windows Update Catalog

Dan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:43:37 +0000

Insert the Windows Vista installation disc in the disc drive, and then restart the computer.
When you are prompted to restart from the disc, press any key.
When you are prompted, configure the Language to install, Time and currency format , and Keyboard or input method options that you want, and then click Next .
On the Install Windows page, click Repair your computer .
On the System Recovery Options page, click the version of the Windows Vista operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next
On the System Recovery Options page, click Command Prompt .
Type cd C:\windows\winsxs , and then press ENTER.
Type ren pending.xml pending.old , and then press ENTER.
In Registry Editor, locate and then delete the following registry subkey:

HLKM\Offline Components\AdvancedInstallersNeedResolving
HKLM\Offline Components\PendingXmlIdentifier
HKLM\Offline Components\NextQueueEntryIndex

At the command prompt, type exit to exit Registry Editor. Press ENTER.
Click Restart

Reference: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/13dec2a0-2694-4b11-9b0c-9b8fbe6162ee

Reset HP Integrated Lights Out Board to Factory Defaults

Dan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:45:19 +0000

Issue:
Cannot login to HP Integrated Lights Out Board (bad credentials).

Cause:
Someone failed to record the configuration.

Solution:
If an operating system supported by HP Proliant Essentials is installed along with a recent Proliant Support Pack, you may reset the Integrated Lights Out board to its factory defaults. Use the HP Lights-Out Online Configuration utility.

C:\Program Files\HP\hponcfg\hponcfg.exe /reset

Honor Guest IDE/SATA Flush Requests

Dan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:43:59 +0000

Issue:
VirtualBox ignores IDE/SATA disk flush requests.

Cause:
This is by design. To improve performance VirtualBox ignores these requests. This can create an issue with filesystems that do not have fsck-like tools (ZFS is an example) create a situation where the on disk information is inconsistent due to data held in RAM.

Solution:
To enable flushing for IDE disks, issue the following command:

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME
"VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/LUN#[x]/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0

The value [x] that selects the disk is 0 for the master device on the first channel, 1 for the slave device on the first channel, 2 for the master device on the second channel or 3 for the master device on the second channel.

To enable flushing for SATA disks, issue the following command:

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#[x]/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0

The value [x] that selects the disk can be a value between 0 and 29.

Reference: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#id2499944

Replace Pipes with Tabs in a Delimited File

Dan — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:44:37 +0000

Issue:
It is often necessary to replace delimiters in a file with a form the receiving party expects. sed is my favorite method of meeting the need.

Solution:
Replace double pipes with tabs

sed 's/||/ /g' file.in > file.out

Note: If you find the tab key simply does not work, try CTRL+V+I from your terminal.
Reference: http://forums.devshed.com/unix-help-35/replacing-tabs-with-spaces-372623.html

Caveats:
Special consideration (and a regex) will be required for data where delimiters are present in the data itself. Consider your use case and apply appropriately.