Imac Pro - Crash when copy over 200GB on SMB !?

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ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Imac Pro - Crash when copy over 200GB on SMB !?

Hello, I have a really strange problem - since I upgrade to my new imac pro.

I really hoped for the 10.13.3 update - because it mentioned to fix SMB problems with crashes - but sadly it didn't help.

The problem I have is the following:

When I copy my VM Ware Folder (via 1Gbps ethernet cable) as a backup to a synology via SMB as soon as I hit around 200GB over the network the network of the imac stalls. No more receiving/sending - no more possibility to ping - even trying to disable and reenable the network doesn't work. No errors shown in any network utlity of bad packets etc. If I just wait then the mac just reboots itself without any error message and comes back.

What I tried so far:

1) Another imac Pro - same issue!
2) Even though the lockup happens on the imac (so it can't be solely related to the network itself) i tried to check if there is anything wrong in the network. Changed router, Change switch, Changed network cable etc. ! However with an old imac I can copy the file on the same line easily without any issues.

3) Tried different SMB settings 2.0 / 3.0 / disabled signing etc. - everything without any help.

For me its clear there is a severe driver issue with the new 10GB network port on the imac pros - but how can I truly identify the issue and report it to apple - so they take me serious without doing the normal troubleshooting...

If anyone has an idea, I would be more than happy to hear it 🙂

Like i said if i for example copy 50GB and then later 150GB - it will happen at 150GB - so it look like something is running full in a some kind of buffer at 200GB copy over network to smb.

Kind regards,
Oliver

macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), null

Posted on Jan 24, 2018 12:29 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 24, 2018 8:44 AM in response to ODY1980

Hey there - with your help I was finally able to find the issue.

Manually did not help me in the beginning because 1000T was correctly set by automatic. But automatic also sets the full duplex mode to:

full-duplex, flow-control, energy-efficient-ethernet

The problem here is the last option -> energy-efficient-ethernet <- this causes when using the SMB protocol and copying more than 200GB of data to the network to completly crash or stall the imac pro.

So all you need to do is changing it to manual and setting the full duplex to: full-duplex, flow-control

without this energy-efficient-ethernet - this also boosts your network speed by 2-3mb/sec.

I reported this to apple and hopefully they will make a fix with the automatic setting.

Kind regards,

Oliver

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Answer 2

spertti

Level 1

36 points

Jan 24, 2018 9:10 AM in response to ODY1980

Good to hear that you find solution.

I was just about to send screen shot of settings which I have set to solve this 10Gb auto setup problem:

The issue might be that when you set or leave that configure to Auto, network devices might negotiate "new" speed at almost like they will, that can lead all kind of network issues.

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Answer 3

spertti

Level 1

36 points

Jan 24, 2018 2:57 AM in response to ODY1980

One thing to try, as I had samekind problem.

Set your network card manually 1gb, not automatically.

System settings-> Network-> ethernet -> advanced -> hardware- >configure -> MANUALLY

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Answer 4

ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 24, 2018 9:28 AM in response to spertti

I don't think the speed negotiation was the problem - because it did negotiate the correct speed for me at 1000baseT and I still had the issue on manual.

But as shown in your screenshot, leaving this new energy-efficient-ethernet off seems to be the cure of all evil - at least for this SMB issue (it did work well on AFP).

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Answer 5

Jan 30, 2018 2:58 AM in response to ODY1980

Got the same crash after copying a bunch of gigabytes by SMB.

My default network-setings were by default: "automatic" and without energy-efficient, crash still occures.

Yesterday changed to manual and full-duplex with Flow control, still the same cash happened after copying lots of gigabytes (whatever from/to imac pro <--> NAS or NAS-to-NAS).

Today i'm testing CIFS instead of connecting via SMB to the NAS (to different machines, so these are not the problem...).

At third test option if nothing helps:

Having a USB-C network adapter...

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Answer 6

Jan 30, 2018 7:23 AM in response to Wunderlicht

Done with the tests so far.

Conclusion:
- Connection via AFP to NAS: 250GB++ all ok.
- Connection via CIFS to NAS: 400GB++ all ok.

- Switching to AFP protocol to NAS: Nearly system freeze after around 100 GB copy NAS-to-NAS (or copying iMac to NAS vice versa. Switching curently hard disks).

While doing the tests no reboot were proceeded.

So definitely the SMB connection(s) with a lots of copying (100-200GB or more) are having issues with the iMac pro.
Apple, do you ready this? It's reproducable. 😐

Neither any different network setting are helping (at least, switching from "automatic" to manual and only fullduplex (with no additional settings) ... also trying jumbo frames. The fault must be at the SMB connection/protocol, not (directly) at network settings.

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Answer 7

ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 30, 2018 7:28 AM in response to Wunderlicht

Yep they definately have issues here.

But on my end it was exactly at the 200GB mark - after a fresh restart - where the freeze happens. So after a restart copying 200GB to SMB would crash at almost exactly this amount or no crash but the network connection stalled.

However since disabling the energy-efficient duplex mode all is fine. So that's really weird - that you could not fix it with this. An external network card also solves the issue (I tried it and it worked). But hopefully they will fix it with next update.

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Answer 8

Jan 31, 2018 11:56 AM in response to ODY1980

We are experiencing the exact same issue - very frustrating. First with finder disconnecting from SMB shares in 10.13.2 and now this...

This problem has NOT been solved. We have yet to transfer over 200GB to our SMB Share over our 10Gbps connections at proper 10Gb SMB speeds (~400 - 600Mbps). I have been back and forth with our tech support of our Server supplier and this all looks very strange and new to them. My guess is there's still a bug/issue in High Sierra.

As discussed in this thread, we tried changing things to Manual, 10GbaseT, full-duplex, flow-control, energy efficient ethernet turned off, Standard (1500) and our connection is a silly 10Mbps...no getting to 200GB this century with those speeds.

Apple please help - we'd love to use our new iMac Pro's with our SMB Share...to be honest - our business depends on it.

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Answer 9

Jan 31, 2018 12:44 PM in response to ODY1980

Haha!

It's NOT JUST ME!

Sorry. I know that's a little sad, but I've been working with Apple to try and fix this for nearly two weeks!

Here's a video of my system doing almost the same thing:

My Brand-New iMac Pro Constantly Crashes! - (iMac Pro Network woes on 10.13.3) - YouTube

I should note however, that my crashes occur REGARDLESS of the share type. SMB, AFS and NFS all do the same thing after 200-300 GB has been transferred. And it happens on both 10 GBe internal. My machine has also been crashing without the 10GBe network enabled, and a Sanlink3 T1 in use instead.

I'm out of the office today with a kiddo at home, but I'm going to try and get in tonight to give this suggested fix a go.

Nikki.

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Answer 10

ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 1, 2018 11:19 AM in response to Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield

I still think that we are talking here about 2 different issues! The one which some of us had is directly related to the energy-efficient-ethernet.

But if you say that you are crashing on all protocol types and regardless what network interface used - I am pretty sure this is a completely different issue - especially because it is NOT related to the network adapter itself 🙂.

So maybe you should also contact Apple and get through their diagnostics.

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Answer 11

Feb 1, 2018 12:43 PM in response to ODY1980

I'm not so sure...when I set the iMac Pro's Ethernet settings to "Automatically" it fills the Duplex options with energy-efficient Ethernet. That's when I'm experiencing crashing...

We DID transfer 5TB last night on a separate 2016 iMac with no issues - so I'm going to say it's NOT our SMB/Server's issue.

Next step: We're going to set the configuration to Manual tonight with 1000baseT with NO energy-efficient ethernet and see if it gets over 200GB before crashing.

Will get back to this thread! Apple - you there?

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Answer 12

Feb 1, 2018 2:04 PM in response to IndianaPwns

Got a really nice screen session and overseas talk with Mike F. from Apple. In over 30 minutes we tried to identify the error and crash, and state of the hardware here.

Since further investigations on myself the error (on my iMac pro) will happen with AFP, CIFS or SMB connections (against saing previously cifs and AFP were ok) after or around copying 200 GB.

Until the ~200GB were reached. You can split the copy job e.g. 100GB in the morning and 100 at the afternoon (without rebooting), the error still happened after around 200 GB were reached in total.

Network settings: Can't prevent freeze/crash/reboot with network-energy settings enabled or disabled, other flow control, different frame sizes (1500 or 9000) or leaving settings 'automatic' or by any other manual setting. This seems slightly being different from some machines, reading this so far here.

But the error/crash will NOT happen, when you use a FTP program. Still done my copying (changing NAS harddisks) with this kind of program these days, to get it finished... (700 GB so far in one session without any crash)

Current state: Will having a second screen session with Mike F. from Apple, Sacramento on monday and transferring a system wide full machine log to apple, after reproducing a 'fresh' crash for further examination by Apple.

Good to hear that something is happening inside the apple space station, and were were heared 🙂

If they can reproduce it, proably at the next update(s) the error will be fixed.

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Answer 13

ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 1, 2018 2:30 PM in response to Wunderlicht

Really strange that even your issue looks almost the same as mine looked - except that I could not reproduce it on AFP or other protocols and also the energy-efficient-ethernet option resolved it.

But overal your issue looks very similar - I had even had the same problem with the 200GB it didn't matter if you did it in one go or seperated - but once after a clean restart when you reached over 200GB SMB transfer the imac pro stalled.

I am also at it with an engineer from apple, so let's hope they can resolve this soon.

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Answer 14

ODY1980 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 1, 2018 3:05 PM in response to ODY1980

Now its getting really totally strange... in order to further investigate this issue with an apple engineer - I had to reenable energy efficient ethernet once again so I was able to reproduce it for some diagnosis...

and now... I did reproduce it... but when now switching back to full-duplex, flow control - exactly as it was before its STILL happening!!

So now I know why some of you may not be able to remedy the problem with this change. It seems like that the network adapter is not keeping the settings correctly!!

Long story short, I wanted to help apple to give them log files and reproduce the problem and now its also back on my machine and this option doesn't help it anymore... so to all of you where it works now - just leave it alone 🙂 but that explains at least why it worked for some and others not.

Kind regards,

Oliver

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Answer 15

Feb 3, 2018 6:45 AM in response to ODY1980

Very interesting! PLEASE report back with any new information.

Just an FYI, you might want to tell your Apple Support representative, that we're having similar issues with other Mac's transferring to an SMB on High Sierra. Those Macs use the Sonnet 10Gb Twin Ethernet Adapter.

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