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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: motorollin on December 22, 2007, 11:02:07 AM
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See sig for spec of my machine. Has been up and running with no problems for ages now. Nothing has changed as far as the spec is concerned.
I was using my A4000 this morning and when I closed iBrowse I got an error that HD0 (my system partition) was not a DOS disk. I cancelled the error, and then got the following:
"SmartFilesystem request
Volume 'OS3.9' (HD0: cybppc.device, unit 88)
Hashchain of object 4188 is
corrupt or incorrectly linked"
I cancelled it and then got the same error but for a different object number. All the while the HDD LED was constantly on. After I cancelled this error iBrowse finished closing, the HDD LED went off and everything seemed ok. I powered the machine off because I was scared :lol:
Anyone have any idea what this error means? Is there anything to worry about or is it just a warning? Do I need to do anything? Maybe a backup/format/re-copy?
TIA
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moto
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No idea what that is but wouldn't take any chances.
Get a backup done as soon as you can.
In my experience, once you get errors under SFS, it can only be solved by formatting.
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Thank you - that's good advice. Would you recommend totally erasing and re-partitioning, or is it sufficient to just format the existing partitions?
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moto
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No need to re-partition anything. Just hit format and go. It is probably good idea to not run IBrowse on SFS.
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Reformatting will be enough.
My problems do seem to occure on the partiton I use for downloads and the Ibrowse Cache.
So the above statement could well be correct.
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Thanks again, will back up and reformat ASAP. What is the problem with iBrowse running on SFS partitions?
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moto
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What is the problem with iBrowse running on SFS partitions?
SFS is buggy. It corrupts itself on some actual usage (which browser cache generates).
I tried SFS couple of years ago. It'd commit suicide after single copy operation (it got as far as 20GB of data copied).
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Piru wrote:
SFS is buggy. It corrupts itself on some actual usage (which browser cache generates).
I tried SFS couple of years ago. It'd commit suicide after single copy operation (it got as far as 20GB of data copied).
I had no idea SFS was so problematic. I was under the impression it was one of the best and most stable filesystems to use.
What would you recommend as an alternative?
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moto
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SFS is still in development; I assume some of its bugs have been fixed in recent years?
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I'm running 1.277 from Aminet currently, but I notice there is a more recent version on the developer's web page (1.58 Beta). Would it be wise to upgrade to this version?
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moto
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Isn't 1.277 the latest?
http://strohmayer.org/
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What would you recommend as an alternative?
PFS3 works for me.
However, some have had issues with PFS3, too.
Personally I know of single issue with PFS3: Delete large amount of data at once (say >4GB) and it throws up some warning requester and stops. However (for me at least) everything seems to be fine after reboot. If I delete the large amount of data in smaller chunks (say 2GB at a time) it works just fine.
PFS3 uses atomic commit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_commit). PFS3 includes pretty good repair tools.
Professional File System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_File_System) on wikipedia.
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Hmm not according to this page:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS/download.htm
Is this a different SmartFileSystem? Or has someone else taken over development?
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moto
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Is it still possible to register PFS?
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moto
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It says 1999 for version 1.58.
1.277 from the other site is from 2007.
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Weirdness. Must be a different SFS. Naughty if it is since they seem to have "borrowed" not only the name but also the logo...
I will consider moving over to PFS if I can register it.
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moto
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Well, I'd check the usual amiga dealers. The filesystems comes on a CD, with patch (http://aminet.net/package/biz/patch/PFS3_5153) to latest version on aminet.
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SFS works 100% fine for me, including IBrowse. Anyone complaining about it probably was just unlucky and didn't have a backup. That or their HD is bad...
I switch to SFS from PFS3, because PFS is *very* buggy with long file names, and I've never looked back. I would *not* switch back to PFS, because it is no-longer supported, where-as SFS is.
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@ChrisH
SFS works 100% fine for me, including IBrowse. Anyone complaining about it probably was just unlucky and didn't have a backup. That or their HD is bad...
I'm afraid luck has nothing to do with it. SFS - while still being developed - still hasn't been able to iron out the fatal corruption bugs. It just gets even worse when SFS doesn't have proper repair tools. Once you've copied your data back and forth couple of times, each time being forced to reformat, I'd guess you might get a bit irritated.
Additionally SFS isn't very smart when allocating storage for the new data, and it gets worst case fragmentation when you write multiple files to the disk at the same time. That is just brain damaged.
I switch to SFS from PFS3, because PFS is *very* buggy with long file names
I've never had a single problem with long filenames, and I have lots of them.
I've used different PFS incarnations pretty much as long as they've existed (even back when they were free). I still have my files from that period. Just lucky?
[EDIT] That being said, considering the number of reports ppl having issues with PFS3, too, I can't just ignore them. Maybe I just am the luckiest man in the world? [/EDIT]
I would *not* switch back to PFS, because it is no-longer supported, where-as SFS is.
So what does this SFS support give you that PFS3 non-support doesn't? Does SFS have proper repair tool for example?
PFS3 still is the best filesystem for amiga and amiga compatible systems. PFS3 is far from perfect, but the alternatives are even worse.
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It just gets even worse when SFS doesn't have proper repair tools. Once you've copied your data back and forth couple of times, each time being forced to reformat, I'd guess you might get a bit irritated.
I'm sorry, but when most people *don't* have that problem, I tend to believe that it is the user's computer that is at fault. Be it hardware problems/incompatibilities, or hacks corrupting memory, or some other software that is interacting badly with SFS, etc.
I just think it is wrong to say "SFS is aweful, PFS is wonderful". They both have good and bad points, and I have used both without problems.
Never had a single problem with long filenames, and I have lots of them.
I am talking about names that are (say) 100+ characters long, although anything over 32 was risky. Any time I used excessively long files names, that file (if not the whole damn directory) became corrupt/unreadable (and once the entire partition was {bleep}ed).
I have used AFS, PFS, PFS2 & PFS3 :-)
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@ChrisH
I'm sorry, but when most people *don't* have that problem, I tend to believe that it is the user's computer that is at fault.
So you'd recommend users to locate IBrowse cache on their SFS partition?
I am talking about names that are (say) 100+ characters long, although anything over 32 was risky. Any time I used excessively long files names, that file (if not the whole damn directory) became corrupt/unreadable (and once the entire partition was {bleep}ed).
You mean like these (http://www.iki.fi/sintonen/temp/pfs3longnames.txt)?
I have used AFS, PFS, PFS2 & PFS3
Same, although I used the early PFS too (before it was renamed to AFS).
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Personally I know of single issue with PFS3: Delete large amount of data at once (say >4GB) and it throws up some warning requester and stops.
Ah, I had forgotten about that, and it is a real pain once you start having massive partitions. Another reason to switch to SFS...
P.S. PFS is supposed to be "atomic commit", but it apparently has a design flaw which means it isn't unless you have a 1Kb (???) block size. Certainly I had occasionally had corrupted PFS partitions, although that could be down to memory corruption.
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I'm finding the whole SFS thing rather confusion. I swear that I was using a 2.x version where I was previously using a 1.x version. Or maybe I went from SFS1 to SFS2. Sheesh, I dunno. I'll have to fire up the 4000 to find out for certain.
But as far as usability, I have been using SFS for many many moons on my DH1 partition which houses all of my Internet utilities such as YAM, AWeb, etc. I've only recently been using IBrowse, but not heavily. YAM certainly seemed to beat the crap out of the drive and SFS is CONSIDERABLY faster than FFS handling my email, especially when moving or deleting messages.
I have never had an SFS problem. So, maybe I fall under the lucky category. It's been with me as far back as I can remember, back to my A530-powered 500, 4040 A4000D, and CSMKIII A4000D. Mind you, I've also never used IDE drives, so maybe that helps?
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Weird, because the long file name corruption bug was 100% reproducible for me - and won't ever be fixed, because development was stopped years ago :-(
Probably best to say "Use whatever works for you". SFS works for me, PFS works for you :-) Just don't go condemning either system as irrevocably bugged, because clearly a lot of people don't have that problem.
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@ChrisH
Weird, because the long file name corruption bug was 100% reproducible for me
Maybe your hardware was hosed?
Sorry, I couldn't resist ;-)
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@LoadWB
Typically SFS seems to topple over when used a bit more heavily. Say, it isn't perhaps that typical to try to copy 100GB data to the partition at once.
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@ChrisH
PFS is supposed to be "atomic commit", but it apparently has a design flaw which means it isn't unless you have a 1Kb (???) block size.
Atomic commit has been fine here, and I use blocksize of 512 everywhere. The only case I've managed to screw it up was by using cache app that cached disk writes at device level.
Even in that case pfsdoctor saved my butt.
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I use SFS for a couple of years too, and never had an issue (aside from some dying 15 year old HDD problems). I always use ram: as my ibrowse cache though.
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I've never had problems with SFS up until now, but I'll give PFS a try anyway. I'm having problems getting my system partition backed up as it keeps saying certain files can't be found. They're all in the iBrowse cache drawer so I might have to copy everything individually and leave that drawer out.
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moto
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ChrisH wrote:
Weird, because the long file name corruption bug was 100% reproducible for me - and won't ever be fixed, because development was stopped years ago :-(
have you ever set the FNSIZE=107 option during the PFS format?
Otherwise you will have only 32 char available
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how old is your HD, moto?
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Not sure. I bought it from AmigaKit some time within the last year, but I don't know whether it was brand new when I got it.
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moto
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I started a backup using ABackup but I'm not sure I like the idea of using an app to back up - I'd rather use LHA. Would somebody mind giving me the correct LHA command to back up a whole partition including all subdirectories and keep all protection bits etc? I know I should check the command line options and figure it out for myself, but I would rather not take any chances if I'm backing up and formatting.
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moto
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@moto:
I use lzx for such backups. Of the top of my head I cannot remember the command line options, but you'll want to recurse into directories, maximum compression (if you need it,) and retain all file attributes.
I make sure that my current working directory is the parent of the directory tree I want to backup, and use #? as my filename pattern.
Follow my advice and you'll probably have to play with a couple of commands to get it right. I'm sure someone will give you something more definitive... I hope! :-D
[EDIT]: Also, test your archive when you're done creating it. That way you can be sure that the file will extract and that you got all the files you were expecting. Playing with the file mask has always been my Achilles heel, as in some programs #? seems to ONLY get files and no directories.
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Cheers LoadWB. Will look in to the syntax of LZX.
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moto
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Typically SFS seems to topple over when used a bit more heavily. Say, it isn't perhaps that typical to try to copy 100GB data to the partition at once.
Ouch. I've only ever had about 2GB of Amiga files in any partition (mainly because backing-up was a right royal pain).
I would suggest discussing it with the current maintainer of SFS, but I assume you already tried that...
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@Piru
i have a doubt about this thing:
in a mixed enviroment like mine on an A4000, with UWSCSI on CSPPC and an IDE on the internal IDE port, is better to use the same MaxTransfer value for all partitons (UWSCSI and IDE) or not?
mine are:
Mask: 0xFFFFFFFF
MaxTransfer: 0x7FFFFFFF
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I have had the same SFS problem with IBrowse that Harry mentions. Basicly, I now have a FFS system drive + internet utilities, and the rest of my partitions are SFS.
I'll probably try PFS3 some day. The unrecoverable problems I've had with SFS in the past make it worth the price tag.
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motorollin wrote:
I'm running 1.277 from Aminet currently, but I notice there is a more recent version on the developer's web page (1.58 Beta).
Shame on you, I would have expected you would have been able to read version numbers.
What is bigger, 58 or 227?
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1.277 is smaller than 1.58...
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moto
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But 277 is bigger than 58. That's how you should read it.
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Right, it should read 1.277 / 1.058 IMHO.
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@AMC258
That makes more sense. 1.277 is not bigger than 1.58 in decimal. Taking the number after the decimal point and treating it as a separate number and comparing it with the number after the decimal point of the other version number seems a bit perverse to me.
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moto
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Version numbers are not decimal numbers.
They're version dot revision [dot subrevision].
Each number should be considered separately. If previous number is the same, look at the next one.
See Wiki: Software versioning#Numeric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Numeric)
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Precisely why the decimal point should not be used for that convention. Nor the comma for the same reason.
Commodore got it right twice: 2.04 and 2.05 :-)
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Commodore got it right twice: 2.04 and 2.05
Those were the "marketing" version numbers for the releases. Internally they were WB 37.67, KS 37.175 and WB 37.71/37.72, KS 37.299, 37.300, 37.350.
Probably the name with 0 was chosen so that release 2.1 would not appear "older" than the previous releases, though logically it should have been 2.10 then.
Ultimately this version sheme was set in stone by Commodore with the c:Version command. It interprets the numbers separately, rather than a decimal number. It's easy to test with couple of text files with $VER: tags.
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I still use the zero padding because it works either way and can be read either way.
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I've never had problems with SFS up until now, but I'll give PFS a try anyway. I'm having problems getting my system partition backed up as it keeps saying certain files can't be found. They're all in the iBrowse cache drawer so I might have to copy everything individually and leave that drawer out.
You can hide damaged directories using SFSobject (http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/SFSobject). Hidden directories are not copied making backup operation somewhat easier.
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motorollin wrote:
@AMC258
That makes more sense. 1.277 is not bigger than 1.58 in decimal.
Not how it works. First number is the major release number and the second number is the minor release number. See it more as Version 1, build 227.
Dont worry, you're not the first non-programmer to make this mistake, poor Ralph Babel used to get questions about this all the time 4.5 vs 4.15 on his GVP ROM.
http://babel.de/amiga.html
I think the version numbering scheme comes from some version control software similar to CVS or something?!
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SFS works 100% fine for me, including IBrowse. Anyone complaining about it probably was just unlucky and didn't have a backup. That or their HD is bad...
In fact when talking about software compatibility SFS (Strohmayer version) is not 100% compatible with existing software. It lacks DOS packet compatibility rendering some software (Diavolo Backup for example) useless.
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Hmm not according to this page:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS/download.htm
Is this a different SmartFileSystem? Or has someone else taken over development?
There are four flavours of SmartFileSystem.
The original SFS was developed by John Hendrikx and the last version from him was 1.84 IIRC.
Then there exist newer SFS from Joerg Strohmyaer for M68k and OS4, MorphOS SFS and AROS SFS. All versions are bit different.
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lacks DOS packet compatibility rendering some software (Diavolo Backup for example) useless.
I've been using Diavolo every day with no problems... What am I doing different?
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You probably are not using Packet I/O.
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@adolescent
I have had the same SFS problem with IBrowse that Harry mentions
Did either you or Harry report this to the author of SFS? If not, he can't look to see if this is a real bug with SFS, or some other issue. (I suspect "some other issue" but guessing what is rather tricky.)
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@ChrisH
Did either you or Harry report this
This problem has been there for years.
And only SFS bombs like this. As soon as the cache is moved to FFS or PFS3, the problem goes away.
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@Piru
I'll take that as a "no" then. (It may have been there for you & maybe a few others for years, but if it isn't reported then it can't be known about or fixed by the author...)
BTW, yes it *could* be a bug in SFS, but the fact it isn't seen by many people suggests that it is in some wierd interaction between certain software (or hardware drivers) & SFS+IBrowse. Both OS3 & IBrowse have many bugs, but these bugs don't usually cause problems - but perhaps SFS does something unusual that happens to be interfered by one of these bugs? It would not be the first time that a bug in one app is blamed on another... Maybe SFS has an unusual memory allocation pattern, and that badly interacts with a memory corruption bug in IBrowse?... Who knows!
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@ChrisH
All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.
SFS developers (whoever they might be these days) are well aware of SFS bombing pretty much frequently. So much, it's even considered a feature of the filesystem. There are procedures to "resolve" the filesystem corruption (copy data over, format, copy data back).
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So much, it's even considered a feature of the filesystem.
Don't be ridiculous: Journaling filing systems are designed to handle unexpected hardware/software shutdowns/crashes in general (not cause them).
But if SFS has a suggested procedure for recovering a corrupted partition, that is because it still has a "beta" tag (which IMHO has not been necessary for a long time, but I'm not the one dealing with other people's precious data).
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@ChrisH
Journaling filing systems are designed to handle unexpected hardware/software shutdowns/crashes in general (not cause them).
Journaling does not help against the filesystem corrupting itself. That's why it hardly ever helps to reboot after you get one of the infamous SFS error requesters...
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(Deleted.. Didn't realise it had been discussed to death)