[mythtv-users] Stale NFS file handle

[Will Dormann]

Alan Anderson wrote:
> The link down/up is a problem but I dont see it causeing stale file handles.  
> The nfs server wont restart because the link dropped.    If the client tries 
> a nfs trasnaction while the link is down then you might a  NFS server timeout 
> then later a server ok, reported on the client when the nfs server responds.  
> But not a stale file handle.  Dont get me wrong the link down is bad and will 
> affect all network traffic to/from the server.  I just do not see it causeing 
> stale file handles.  


Yeah, I've tried reading up on the stale NFS file handle error, and I 
can't see how any of the scenarios apply to my case.   For example, if 
you've got multiple NFS clients, one client deletes a file, and the 
other one tries to access that file and it still thinks it's there due 
to caching.

I've set acdirmin=0,acdirmax=0 in my fstab to disable caching, but that 
didn't have any effect on the problem.  I only have one NFS client (The 
MythTV machine), so I don't see how that'd really make much of a difference.

I'm using a different switch now, and that didn't affect it either.

So now that I've got a new NIC in there, I think the last thing would be 
the cable.   But I'm hoping this takes care of it!  :)

I'm using SMB for now just because because this stale NFS file handle 
thing has left a bad taste in my mouth.  I'm not sure what the real 
cause of the error is...     Could a change in how MythTV is writing to 
files and handling errors have caused this problem to appear?  Who 
knows.   It's just a stab in the dark, but I'm thinking perhaps the 
occasional "link down" error has been there always for me, but some sort 
of change between MythTV 0.16 and 0.17 has caused it to not recover 
gracefully from that temporary error state?   When I have received the 
infinite stream of "Stale NFS file handle" errors in the past, it has 
not required a restart of the NFS server or client.  The NFS mount was 
still there and working properly.  Restarting mythbackend was all that 
it took to fix it.

-- 
-WD