10.6.3 - Apparent spontaneous unmount of network volumes
Since updating my server to 10.6.3 I am experiencing spontaneous unmounts of AFP volumes from clients running both 10.6.2 and 10.6.3. In both cases the Console on the client systems reports the following messages:
02/04/2010 3:07:53 am kernel AFP_VFS afpfsCacheLookup: got 2 on root vnode, unmounting vol
02/04/2010 3:07:53 am kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_unmount: /Volumes/XXX, flags 524288, pid 626
(Obviously the PID on the second system is different.)
In both cases there was a Time Machine backup happening during this occurrence which commenced prior to the unmount, but there had been many previous backups which did not trigger an unmount so I am unsure whether this is significant or not.
The only other clue is that on the 10.6.3 client (but not the 10.6.2 client) the following two lines appear in the console immediately prior to the unmount event:
02/04/2010 3:07:53 am KernelEventAgent[40] tid 00000000 type 'afpfs', mounted on '/Volumes/XXX', from 'afp_000000004oMw0oYHtK3gzaWf-2.2e000004', dead
02/04/2010 3:07:53 am com.apple.KernelEventAgent[40] KernelEventAgent: sysctl
unmount(afp000000004oMw0oYHtK3gzaWf-2.2e000004): Resource busy
This is definitely becoming an issue for me which I desperately need to resolve.
One other symptom I am experiencing is that both clients seem to repeatedly "lose" their mail POP3 passwords and these need to be re-entered to retrieve mail. I suspect what's actually happening is that authentication is incorrectly failing on the server, triggering the request to re-enter the password, and I wonder whether this is a factor in the AFP unmounts. What's significant here is that this is happening on both the 10.6.2 and 10.6.3 clients; the only common factor is that the server has been updated to 10.6.3.
1- How many of you are backing up to a drive that is directly connected using Time Machine?
2- How many of you are backing up to a network drive with Time Machine, not including a Time Capsule or Airport Express?
3- How many of you are backing up to a Time Capsule?
4- How many of you are backing up to an Airport Express-shared disk?
(All using Time Machine, of course.)
I noticed that the problems didn't occur until after 10.6.3, but maybe also Time Capsule Update, and I didn't have problems with a direct-connected drive (other than the drive kept crapping out, but I think that is unrelated). Problems showed up when I moved to an Airport Express shared disk, and only after mucking about with the password to get it to mount. I.e., maybe it has somethig to do with the need to authenticate to the served volume which crashes DirectorySomethingOrOther, which happens simultaneously when the problem occurs.
mcptron wrote:
i'm using a directly connected firewire 800 drive for tm backups on a mac mini
Same here. I have TM running only once a day, at 5 am, and this is when the failure has occurred on each occasion.
Also, it has not happened for a while. May 5, May 10, but not since (it's now the 27th). The only subsequent change I have made is the Java upgrade, and even that was just a couple of days ago.
SLS 10.6.3 MacPro, TM drive is in a drive bay.
After many tests, every AFP issue has been when TM "disconnects"... even though the TM drive is internal and never dismounts. The bug looks to be that TM is also disconnecting AFP share points when TM closes out.
The only times AFP share points have gone missing have been at the same moment TM completes a run. But this does not happen at the end of every TM run... still looking for what is different about specific TM runs.
I suggest only manually running TM until fixed, this way you can check AFP when TM finishes. I'm filing a bug, you should too.
This problem keeps recurring and I am hoping against hope that it will be fixed by 10.6.4 as it is proving a total nightmare. Here is another console trail of destruction which shows that the problem is pretty obviously caused when Time Machine attempts to mount the Time Capsule over our network:
I live in dread of that disconnect dialog popping up, and all the carnage it causes with applications (InDesign CS4 is particularly bad at handling a situation where the network volume disappears on it, although Illustrator CS 4 and Photoshop CS4 seem to have no big problem. Word 2008 is another app that doesn't like it very much although you can normally get through without a force-quit).
It was crashing every time that there was any concentrated workload on the machine from any program or activity.
After days I discovered that it was spotlight continuing to attempt to index and getting jammed. According to the Activity Monitor it was using 70% of the CPU.
Disabled Spotlight on 1 June 2010 - no crashes since - touch wood.
Check the console and it may be reporting as mds crash or Spotlight Index crash.
If you want to disable Spotlight from 10.6.3 then remove these two files: