FreeNAS 8 RC5 and RELEASE Cannot Create ZFS Volume on Internal Storage

[kevanbrown]

FreeNAS 8 RC5 and RELEASE builds cannot create a new ZFS mirror/volume using two, internal 320GB HDD's that are attached to an onboard Intel SATA controller that is configured to operate in ATA mode.

When attempting to create a new volume using these two drives, the message "Some error occurred" is displayed in the GUI and the volume is not created. No additional information is given at the console.

As a result, I am currently stuck running FreeNAS 8 RC4.

[dwhite]

Hello kevanbrown,

I suspect the issue is that there is a pre-existing partition table on the disks that FreeNAS can't figure out how to get rid of. Try the following procedure, then try recreating the volume.

1. Open a shell on the FreeNAS server.
2. Run 'gpart show ada0', replacing 'ada0' with the appropriate device name. Make sure its one of the disks you're trying to add to the volume and not the FreeNAS install device.
3. Using the listing as a guide, run 'gpart remove -i X ada0' with X iterating over the number of partitions displayed. The 3rd column of gpart is the partition index number.
4. Run 'gpart destroy ada0' to completely erase the table.
5. Run 'gpart create -s GPT ada0; gpart destroy ada0' to wipe out any GPT backup table.
6. Repeat from step 2 for the other HDD.

If that doesn't work then consult the boot messages and see if there is some other exceptional configuration with the disks, such as they are part of an old ATA RAID from another system. You will need to remove any such configuration before you can use the disks with FreeNAS.

[kevanbrown]

I can't perform the steps you mention since the system is now in production use. I discovered this issue when I began the process of reloading my server to migrated from FreeNAS 8 RC2 to RELEASE.

Before reloading, I backed-up all of my data and manually deleted the existing ZFS volumes using the GUI. Next I reloaded (choosing not to upgrade) and manually attempted to recreate the ZFS volumes on the same disks (from which I had previously deleted them). This failed in the RELEASE and RC5 builds but succeeded in the RC4 build.

Does this change the validity of your answer in any way (the fact that it works in RC4 but not newer builds)?

[dwhite]

That might be enough info to attempt a reproduction case.

My gut feeling is that it was probably a bug in volume deletion on the earlier release candidate, though, so there may be no bug to fix for -RELEASE and just a workaround needed to clean up whatever mess RC2 left behind.

Myself and half of the FreeNAS team are attending BSDCan, so the soonest I could look at this is next Monday.

[jpaetzel]

What is the current status of this? The volume creation/deletion has gone through a fairly major revamp, so this issue would just be a support case.

[dwhite]

I haven't been able to reproduce this and had to set it aside for other work. Being that this was for release candidates that were pre-RELEASE, I just don't think that this is going to get a lot of traction for spending time on tracking down. I'll try it if I have the opportunity, though.

[gcooper]

This item is believed to be fixed in 8.0.1. Please reopen this ticket with more details if upgrading/trying to install 8.0.1+ fails to work for you.

[jstrebel]

Hi,
it looks to me this has something in common from what I reported in ticket 695. just checked it with r7539 and the error is still there.
jakob