[Sugar-devel] [XSCE] Sugar 0.110 (Build 20) shows unexplained stoppage of io on removable drives

[Alex Perez]

Tony,

> On Jan 3, 2017, at 11:30 AM, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
> 
> I have spent hours in the past few days coping with io failures while installing rpms and copying large files from usb sticks. The problem has also affects sd cards.

Which XO hardware version? 1? Which OLPC OS/kernel version? These are critical pieces of information which have not been included. Also, when you say “Sugar 0.110” do you actually mean OLPC OS 13.2.8?
> 
> The symptom is that during an extended io operation, the usb stick generates io errors. An 'ls' on the folder shows it to be empty. After a cd ../ and a cd back to the folder, the ls shows the contents. This failure has been seen on an sd card as well. It does not occur during flash so the firmware appears unaffected. Since the io recovers, it is not a simple 'umount'.
> 
> My theory is that the problem is related to the power settings. The gsettings: org.sugarlabs.power automatic claims the default to be false.
> However, in 0.110 it is set to true. One basis for the theory is that when the script appears stalled, hitting the enter key seems to move it forward (awaking the system?).
> 
> After resetting the value to false, access to usb devices appears more reliable but there has been at least one script failure that may be due to this problem.
> 
> Since the problem seems to be related to extended io operations when there is no interactive use of the keyboard or trackpad, this could have devastating consequences for use of an XO as a server.
> 
> Tony
>