[ubuntu] Firewire stability issues with Ubuntu on Mac Mini mid 2007 (sbp2_scsi_abort) topic

Hi!

I am new on this forum but not completely new with Linux. I was playing around with Ubuntu years ago. Loved it but ended up going Apple instead. Just recently re-discovered Linux when I realized I need a home server for files, backups, media etc... Took a few days of research and reading but now I got the server up and running the way I planned, and I'm simply having a blast with Linux :).

However, I have an issue with my Firewire interface. A quite serious issue, and to my big surprise, Google doesn't seem to have the answer this time :O.

My Mac Mini has a few USB 2.0 ports and a Firewire 400 port, so I obviously want to connect all my hard drives to the Firewire port. This works fine at first, but after some time the drives just "disappears", resulting in obvious /IO errors.

I have tried with two different enclosures - same thing. However, connecting only ONE drive seems to work OK. But once I connect another drive, and do some copying between them, either one of them, or both, will "disappear" eventually. I have not found a way yet to restart the firewire bus, so what I do is simply unmount both drives, turn off the power, turn them back on and re-mount them. If I connect the drives via USB instead they run for days without any problems at all.

Since this problem occurs with all the Firewire equipment I currently can test with I suppose there is something on the Mac Mini that's causing problems, or perhaps the 1394 driver in Linux.

I would truly appreciate some help on what to do next here! My setup is kind of useless without Firewire capabilities - running all my drives on USB 2.0 sounds like a nightmare :D.

Some info :

Code:

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$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 3.13.0-24-generic (buildd@batsu) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 2 23:30:00 UTC 2014

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Code:

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$ lsmod | grep -e 1394 -e firewire
firewire_sbp2          22665  1
firewire_ohci          40409  0
firewire_core          68769  2 firewire_ohci,firewire_sbp2
crc_itu_t              12707  1 firewire_core

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Code:

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$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:07.0 Performance counters: Intel Corporation Device 27a3 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 22)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
03:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): LSI Corporation FW322/323 [TrueFire] 1394a Controller (rev 61)

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And today's syslog for everything regarding Firewire (I think...). The key seems to be the "sbp2_scsi_abort" as it always appears when I get this error (only happened one time today though).

Code:

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$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep -e 1394 -e firewire
Feb  5 10:51:46 UBServer64bit kernel: [53182.728435] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 10:51:49 UBServer64bit kernel: [53185.935303] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 10:51:49 UBServer64bit kernel: [53186.247026] scsi23 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394
Feb  5 10:51:49 UBServer64bit kernel: [53186.247143] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: created device fw1: GUID 0030e101e0020275, S400
Feb  5 10:51:50 UBServer64bit kernel: [53186.477397] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:22:44 UBServer64bit kernel: [55041.293738] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:22:45 UBServer64bit kernel: [55041.792069] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: giving up on node ffc2: reading config rom failed: bus reset
Feb  5 11:22:46 UBServer64bit kernel: [55042.632094] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: rediscovered device fw0
Feb  5 11:22:46 UBServer64bit kernel: [55042.632230] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: giving up on node ffc0: reading config rom failed: bus reset
Feb  5 11:22:46 UBServer64bit kernel: [55042.632263] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:22:46 UBServer64bit kernel: [55043.292063] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: ORB reply timed out, rcode 0x11
Feb  5 11:22:48 UBServer64bit kernel: [55045.292050] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: ORB reply timed out, rcode 0x11
Feb  5 11:22:51 UBServer64bit kernel: [55047.492053] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: ORB reply timed out, rcode 0x11
Feb  5 11:22:51 UBServer64bit kernel: [55047.591578] Modules linked in: iptable_filter ip_tables x_tables nls_utf8 hfsplus firewire_sbp2 arc4 ath5k coretemp hid_apple hid_appleir ath applesmc kvm_intel hid_generic mac80211 kvm i915 cfg80211 input_polldev drm_kms_helper snd_hda_codec_idt drm snd_hda_intel usbhid snd_hda_codec i2c_algo_bit snd_hwdep lpc_ich hid snd_pcm snd_page_alloc snd_timer snd soundcore video mac_hid lp parport usb_storage firewire_ohci firewire_core crc_itu_t sky2
Feb  5 11:22:51 UBServer64bit kernel: [55047.955772] scsi26 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394
Feb  5 11:22:51 UBServer64bit kernel: [55047.955891] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: created device fw2: GUID 0030e101e0020275, S400
Feb  5 11:22:51 UBServer64bit kernel: [55048.000239] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: released target 23:0:0
Feb  5 11:22:51 UBServer64bit kernel: [55048.185204] firewire_sbp2 fw2.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:24:56 UBServer64bit kernel: [55173.216101] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: rediscovered device fw0
Feb  5 11:24:56 UBServer64bit kernel: [55173.216147] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:25:00 UBServer64bit kernel: [55176.780202] firewire_sbp2 fw2.0: released target 26:0:0
Feb  5 11:25:01 UBServer64bit kernel: [55178.237963] scsi27 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394
Feb  5 11:25:01 UBServer64bit kernel: [55178.238098] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: created device fw1: GUID 0030e101e0020275, S400
Feb  5 11:25:02 UBServer64bit kernel: [55178.470724] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:25:21 UBServer64bit kernel: [55198.160200] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: released target 27:0:0
Feb  5 11:26:04 UBServer64bit kernel: [55240.556075] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: rediscovered device fw0
Feb  5 11:26:47 UBServer64bit kernel: [55284.164100] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: rediscovered device fw0
Feb  5 11:29:22 UBServer64bit kernel: [55439.370596] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: BM lock failed (busy), making local node (ffc0) root
Feb  5 11:29:22 UBServer64bit kernel: [55439.370604] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc0, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:29:26 UBServer64bit kernel: [55442.522660] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:29:26 UBServer64bit kernel: [55442.886520] scsi29 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394
Feb  5 11:29:26 UBServer64bit kernel: [55442.886664] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: created device fw1: GUID 0030e101e0020275, S400
Feb  5 11:29:26 UBServer64bit kernel: [55443.119248] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:50:02 UBServer64bit kernel: [56678.916213] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: released target 29:0:0
Feb  5 11:51:10 UBServer64bit kernel: [56746.404363] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:51:10 UBServer64bit kernel: [56746.904065] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: giving up on node ffc0: reading config rom failed: bus reset
Feb  5 11:51:20 UBServer64bit kernel: [56756.682529] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:51:27 UBServer64bit kernel: [56763.845124] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc1, gap_count=5
Feb  5 11:51:27 UBServer64bit kernel: [56764.233376] scsi31 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394
Feb  5 11:51:27 UBServer64bit kernel: [56764.233493] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: workarounds 0x20 (firmware_revision 0x012804, model_id 0x000001)
Feb  5 11:51:27 UBServer64bit kernel: [56764.233511] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: created device fw1: GUID 00d0b80e013150de, S400
Feb  5 11:51:28 UBServer64bit kernel: [56764.432764] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:51:31 UBServer64bit kernel: [56768.403711] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc2, gap_count=7
Feb  5 11:51:32 UBServer64bit kernel: [56768.901507] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: reconnected to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:51:35 UBServer64bit kernel: [56771.910368] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: phy config: new root=ffc2, gap_count=7
Feb  5 11:51:35 UBServer64bit kernel: [56771.910790] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: reconnected to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:51:35 UBServer64bit kernel: [56771.911219] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: reconnected to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 11:51:35 UBServer64bit kernel: [56772.230946] scsi32 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394
Feb  5 11:51:35 UBServer64bit kernel: [56772.231076] firewire_core 0000:03:03.0: created device fw2: GUID 0030e101e0020275, S400
Feb  5 11:51:36 UBServer64bit kernel: [56772.446297] firewire_sbp2 fw2.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries)
Feb  5 12:25:23 UBServer64bit kernel: [58799.836074] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: sbp2_scsi_abort
Feb  5 12:25:33 UBServer64bit kernel: [58809.836039] firewire_sbp2 fw1.0: sbp2_scsi_abort
Feb  5 12:25:43 UBServer64bit kernel: [58820.113942] sd 31:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Feb  5 12:25:44 UBServer64bit kernel: [58821.113945] sd 31:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Feb  5 12:25:46 UBServer64bit kernel: [58823.013949] sd 31:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device

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Happy to provide any additional info if needed - just let me know!

A million thanks in advance :)

Best regards

Peter