Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: Lo on March 15, 2003, 05:14:49 PM
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Just when I thought IB 2.3 demo was rock solid, I wake up to a cold boot and validation error of "block 1234xyz used twice" requestor. Maybe its not IBrowse, but I leave it's Icon out on my workbench, and I "can't put away this Icon". along with having to click cancel on "error validating disk work" 3 or 4 times just to change a web page. I knew I shoulda put it on its own partition, dang! So, I'm off to delete the cache, etc. " AH'LL B BACH" (I hope) (http:// http://home.hawaii.rr.com/kihoalu/images/goosed.gif)
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Looks like I'm doomed! I cannot delete Ibrowse's cache.. Should I try a force delete via CLI? Try Disk Salv? (never used it on a HD). Any chance of saving the partition? Or when in doubt, reformat? (At least I saved Miami) (http:// http://home.hawaii.rr.com/kihoalu/images/happy.gif)
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use disksalv or quaterback tools to fix the drive, the drive will be validated and u will be able to delete the files, i used to get the same problem all the time , when voyagerr used to crash all the time it used to mess up the disk.
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That's why I always keep the Cache on a separate, smaller
partition... Much faster to validate, and you don't have to
worry about your blood pressure. ;-)
.
SlimJim
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get pfs 3 and you won`t have to worry
about things like that....
and ofcourse as a nice side effect you
will gain some speed
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DiskSalv is a must for Amiga browser users.
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Here here Slim,
Mine is like this (For the moment, I'm going through a restructure soon, but you know):
Workbench:
Apps:
Files:
Games:
Cache: Shed: EmergencyBench:
Not a very interesting post I admit, but if anyone gets fed up with validating massive partitions it may give you a little something to try out.
Back to the original post, it may not have been IBrowse that caused your troubles, but its that part of your HD that has been affected... Maybe.. Who knows...? Apart from Mulder & Scully.
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Thanks for your replies!
Disk Salv couldn't fix the partition, tried all the options I think (salvage, repair, validate etc.) So.. IBrowse has its OWN partition now.
Umm, so would it be better/faster to just put the cache directory there, and have the rest of IBrowse in the same partition as MUI/Miami? I don't mind risking losing URL's if it happens again.. thanx
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AS was said, i have the path of the cache directory leading to another partition. I also have a backup STORE of the cache directory with pages that i can surf offline.
(same partition).
I am in the habit of normally flushing the contents after a surf .
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What version of AOS (FFS) do you got? I've never had any validation-problems since OS 3.9 with BB 2. If your partition isn't bigger than 4Gb you could use Disksalve and if you have V4.x of this program you could use Repair. This should fix your problem.
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Your right hotrod, I did not have BB2 installed!
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I had the same problem last week when YAM crashed several times. But it turned out that YAM was the victim, not the culprit, since there were bad blocks on the drive around the bitmap area. I managed to get all my files off the drive and scrap it for a new one.
I suggest you run Quarterback tools (or something else) on the drive to check for bad blocks (errant software can't cause them). If there are bad blocks, the disc is dying.
tony
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I use pfs 3 and a separate partition, and I have
never had any problems.
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Okay folks I said this about a hundred times but I am going to say it again.
WARNING!! A total blown head gasket rant is about to commence all those who don't want to hear a raving RANT please leave the room now. You have been warned.
That was a totally an unnecessary error. It did not have to happen.
PFS/AFS has been around for over a decade. SFS is available for free on the internet USE one of THEM!!!!!
I can pull power while copying a partition with absolutely no fear. I never ever have a invalidated partition.
What you say are those programs? Simple a FFS replacement that are fast compatible and more importantly you never ever get an invalidated disk. Short of a hardware failure you data is safe and secure.
Besides being many times faster than FFS. They offer protection from invalidated disk because they use what is called an atomic filesystem there is always a valid disk structure it goes from valid structure to valid structure there is never a half way point like FFS.
Unless you like invalidated disks and the tedium to fix them there is no reason not to have one of these programs installed on your hard drive besides sheer stupidity!!!!
If you don't want PFS on all of your partitons you don't have to install it on all partitions only on the partitions you want to protect.
You can even mix them all on a single hard drive if you like.
Good points about these systems.
No invalidated hard drives and lost data
many times faster than FFS
PFS3 has no limits on the size of the Hard drive
SFS has a three Tetrabytes size limit
Both have a single partition limit in the 104 Gigabyte range.
Full Amigados Compatibility.
Downside only problems I have ever encountered using these programs is with the GVP crap.
GVP does not read the RDB properly and will not see these partitions. ARGG! but install these on the RDB say on a IDE drive not hooked to your GVP bingo now the GVP can read and write these partitions fine .
Why GVP still can't make stuff that follow a simple standard laid out by Commodore 16 years ago is mind boggling. You should also note that since it is not reading the RDB any updates to FFS installed on the RDB are also not being read properly.
Why anybody is still using FFS is beyond me. Most probaly because they haven't heard of the above programs but after learning about them and still using FFS is sheer lunacy.
BTW SFS support is built into AOS4.0
RANT over feeling better now
Kurt
links for SFS and PFS
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS
http://on.to/greed
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If you still continue using FFS after what has been posted, install turboval available through aminet : it will help you very much is validating related problems.
Lio
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What if you create a RAD: and copy ALL the files there, OS too, then re-boot, making the OS ram resident, and only access the rad: or ram disk: That's what I do. I haven't had a "disk validation error" yet. Been ok for 13 years.
Periodically copy over the cache and text/image files you want to save from the shell.
AmigaOne! SUPERIOR!!!!!!!!
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I don't like IB2.3 :-(
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PFS and SFS are not that great either. PFS doesn't have (and never will have) a PPC native version so many don't feel it's worth buying for future Amigas. SFS isn't really finished (and looks like it never will be) and still has bugs and lacks some features (like locking drives). Either of them don't screw up often, but when they do, they screw up big time. Data recovery chance is approaching zero.
FFS is the only filesystem with guaranteed 100% compatibility whether you're running Linux-APUS or other exotic stuff. It's also easy to get the data out of a broken partition.
I'll stick to FFS on my SYS: partition for now. With a system as stable as mine (no hacks), I almost never get an invalidated disk - and that's when running Samba too! I run SFS partitions too (and can't say I see much of a speed difference), but I keep a very close eye on them...
THOR's DiskSafe is also a nice tool for FFS users that stops them invalidating their HD with a badly timed reset or even from some crashes.
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PFS doesn't have (and never will have) a PPC native version
Emulated PFS3 still beats the s**t out of any FFS. I use PFS3 for all drives on MorphOS, and have had 0 problems.
Either of them don't screw up often, but when they do, they scew up big time. Data recovery chance is approaching zero.
PFS3 comes with very good recovery program (two programs in fact) that can fix any size partition (I perioidically verify my 130 gigs of partitions, just in case). In years (PFS, AFS, PFS2, PFS3) of PFS usage I've had two occasions of filesystem corruption, and both were due to my experimentations with Read/Write cache program (external write cache program is a NONO for PFS, I quicky learnt). Even in these cases I was able to recover fully.
FFS is the only filesystem with guaranteed 100% compatibility whether you're running Linux-APUS or other exotic stuff.
Fine, here is a one good use for FFS. I still prefer VFAT though, it can be read on all m$ oses as well, if needed.
I would never ever go back to FFS.
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I'm not saying FFS is great by any means, just that SFS and PFS have their own flaws too. I've heard of PFS partitions becoming so badly mangled that formatting them is the only option - although, I admit, I don't use PFS so I've never seen it personally.
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I use pFS3 and SFS , but if any of theese crash then i have no way of rescuing my stuff....so thats why backups are a good thing...
i have cahce on a smaller partision...
ib and miamidx etc is on my SYS: disk.
good luck on yer prob and i can say for sure thats its not ibrowse's fault.., its the FFS system u use, anyway.... i do recomend PFS or SFS but i might add that its not great for everyone, due to you should have a backup at all times....
IF IT CRASH ...It cRASH...unlike PFS where u can rescue stuff..
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Atheist,
What if you create a RAD: ...
I used to do that myself for AWeb, and it worked like a charm. Then I got DSL, and I thought "what's the point in wasting HD space on a cache when I have a fast connection?" So I've kept the cache disabled ever since.
If I really want something that's on a site, I just save the page as an IFF image. If I want it as a PDF, I can load the IFF file in PageStream and voila. On the Mac, I just print the page to PDF and make the necessary clean-ups later in Acrobat.
AmiGod
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@lempkee
I agree, PFS3 is great and it is 100% compatible.
Plus it has direct scsi support.
But if it comes down to facts well:
1. 500% faster read/writes and scanning directories. The performance gain varies with depending on devices, buffers and processor but gains of upto 500% are no exception.
2.Disks are always valid, no matter what happens, its called Atomic Commit. More info in PFS3 Docs.
3. Reliability - very reliable and stable filesystem. Has built in problem detection mechanism. When PFS3 detects a problem it will do everything it can to save your data (see problem detection)
4. Parralel access without performance loss.
FFS breaks down when you try to do several things simultaneously on one volume. PFS3 does not!.
5. Full Compatibility.
PFS3 is fully compatible with FFS at filesystem level, but for a few rarely used filesystem packets. What this means is that practically all tools and applications that use the filesystem to access the disk work. All normal applications do this, including most backup tools.
Some applications, however, access the disk directly, bypassing the filesystem. Such applications won't work if they expect a FFS disk. Examples are disk optimisers and repair tools (like Quarterback Tools and DiskSalv).
Such tools have to be specially made or adapted in order to function with PFS3. The reason those tools don't work is that PFS3 stores
information differently on the disk than FFS does. In fact, PFS3 does this in a more efficient and reliable way.
The only feature of FFS that is not supported by PFS3 are record locks. Not a single application that uses this FFS feature is known to us.
6. Easy Filerecovery - lost files can be restored from the delete directory. This includes overwritten files.
7. Long filename support - supports 107 characters
8. Automatically truncated logfiles - stopping them from growing indefinitely.
9. Large disk support - pfs3 supports disk and partitions of upto 104GB using the direct scsi and TD64 interfaces.
10. Multiuser support - a multi user system turns PFS3 into a MuFS replacement. It adds user based access rights to the files on the disk. Each file and directory can be assigned to specific users and user groups. The owner of a file can determine who may have access the file.
The ONLY issue i have had with PFS3 is if you dont follow the advice in the documentation and set the incorrect mask values and pfs3 driver, then your get problems on the disk.
But even this is recoverable to another partition as long as you act quickly rather than leaving it for weeks.
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We all know that one. IB often hangs when writing cache and corrupts the sensitive FFS.
If you got RAM (>64MB) then re-direct cache to ram:.
DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON PFS3! Go with Smart File System SFS. It's free and have never ever caused me any trouble (I kicked out FFS a long time ago). Note that SFS gives a huge leap of HDD performance if you got a modern HDD (yet another reason to dispose of FFS). FFS partitions can be converted to SFS without hassle.
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@jetracer
All your comments are no reason to say don't buy PFS3.
I've tested SFS on an Amiga A4000T with Cyberstorm SCSI Drive, it is slower than PFS3.
SFS is free but its beta!!!!
Plus the other reasons for not using SFS until its out of BETA stage are listed in their own documentation.
People have a choice, and i'm not saying SFS is crap i'm saying its BETA stage. Do you really want people to store their only data on a beta filesystem??
You added comments about "DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON PFS3!", one big issue i have is if more Amiga users spend money on good software maybe developers would stay around.
The only comment i have for you is don't write stuff unless you know all the facts.
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There are a number of things you should know before using this
filesystem.
- Do not use disk caching software which delays writes on a SFS disk.
PowerCache is known to have this feature (but it can be disabled).
SFS relies on data being written in a special order to the disk so
it can keep your disk valid it all times. Caching software which
delays those writes can therefore interfere with this process.
- Programs using ixemul (GNU C for example) might have problems with
this filesystem as well, although this is unlikely.
- Disk changes are implemented, but haven't been fully tested so you
might experience problems. The c:DiskChange command might help to
avoid some problems by telling the filesystem explicitely that the
disk has changed.
- The filesystem doesn't pay attention to write-protection (the
filesystem will get confused eventually if you've write protected
the disk and start writing data to it).
- Not all space gets freed again if you delete all files from a disk.
This is caused by the fact that the filesystem allocates parts of
the disk to store its administration blocks on demand. These areas
aren't freed again (but they are reused if needed!). This will be
fixed eventually, but is no more than a minor inconvience at the
moment.
- The filesystem puts up requesters during booting to inform you that
last changes to the disk before the last reset weren't completed
yet. This means booting may be interrupted and you'll have to
confirm the requesters first.
- Although the filesystem supports blocksizes upto 32 kB, it is not
recommended to use such large blocksizes. SFS performs very well
with small blocksizes and gains very little or even loses speed
with larger blocksizes. I'd recommend not using blocksizes larger
than 2 kB.
- The structure of future versions of this filesystem WILL change
without being backwards compatible as long as the filesytem is in
BETA stage. This means you will need to reformat any SFS
partitions you have before being able to use a new version. Check
the history to see whether or not you need to reformat your disk.
Don't forget this filesystem is BETA - this means it might crash your
machine and damage the files you stored with it. Use it at your own
risk and always keep backups of your important data (but that goes
without saying anyway).
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IB often hangs when writing cache and corrupts the sensitive FFS.
Maybe for you, but I can confidently say that I've never had that problem with iBrowse.
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In all fairness to IBrowse, I believe my validation error was caused by my shutting off the computer while IBrowse was running so it didn't have a chance to "clean up" its cache. (Whatever that means).
(http:// http://home.hawaii.rr.com/kihoalu/images/embarrased.gif)
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Hi Lo,
Almost any type of program will cause that if you shut off the computer while it's writing, or say a database has not closed a file.
AmigaOne! SOME protocols must ALWAYS be followed.