Very Odd Issue W/ A CentOS 6 System

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Now, this is one we have an issue with: it’s got a bttv card, and motion running on it. It’s a Dell PE R720. For some reason, it has never liked the card: 20 min after reboot, it says fatal bus error… but nothing’s wrong, and it runs just fine. Well, expect that we need to keep it on the
2.6.32-431.20.3 kernel, because *everything* later, it randomly starts rebooting, several times a day.

But we’ve never had anything like this, and I’ve never seen anything like this: the bttv module was throwing a ton of IRQ lockup errors. Restarting motion didn’t help. So I was wondering if the issue was with the bttv kernel module, so I rmmoded that, then modprobe bttv… and that was all she wrote. The system lost network connectivity.

Ok, I go over to the rack, and plug in the monitor-on-a-stick, and that’s where it got very strange, and I’ve never seen anything like this: I turn up the monitor… and see it announcing it had seen a new USB device (the keyboard)… and no login, it kept printing copying data [%]
When it hit 100%, it rebooted.

So – has anyone ever seen this behavior? Anyone have an idea what it was copying?

mark

9 thoughts on - Very Odd Issue W/ A CentOS 6 System

  • Hi,

    What is the make/model of the card?

    Are you supplying options when loading the bttv module?

    Regards

    Phil

  • Phil Wyett wrote:

    lspci says:
    Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)

    On and off, I’ve been googling to find if there’s something I can tell it, or the kernel on boot. Currently, I have, in /etc/modprobe.d/bttv:
    options i2c-algo-bit bit_test=1
    options bttv gbuffers card

  • Hi,

    The options line 1 is used widely and only worth changing if all else fails.

    The second options line option of combfilter by docs indicate there is no 2 option and is enabled by default, so you can remove that option to test.

    I would enable two possible compatibility options and see if that helps.

    triton1=0/1 – for Triton1 (+others) compatibility.

    vsfx=0/1 – yet another chipset bug compatibility bit

    The triton1 insmod option sets the EN_TBFX bit in the control register. The vsfx insmod option does the same for EN_VSFX bit. If you have stability problems you can try if one of these options makes your box work solid.

    Source: http://xawdecode.sourceforge.net/aideUS/htmlpage/BTTV-param.htm

    Regards

    Phil

  • Hi, Phil,

    Phil Wyett wrote:

    Let me add to that: lspci -s -vv gives me this
    05:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
    Subsystem: iTuner Spectra8 CardA Input0
    Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop-
    ParErr+ Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
    Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort-
    SERR-

    Ok, thanks.

    Thanks very much. I’ll try those as I have the chance; unfortunately, it’s not something I can do frequently, as the server’s in use, and exporting project directories to users… oh, and it is actually running motion for surveillance of the room…

    mark

  • Phil Wyett wrote:

    Ok, I’ve been doing some research, partly refreshing my memory, since we bought these 2-3 years ago. As you note, above, it *says* it’s an iTuner Spectra8; *however*, when I look at bttv-cards.c, what I see is that *it*
    thinks that such a card has *one* video and one audio. In fact, this is a Bt878, and it has *four* inputs for each, with four chips on the card, one for each channel. The nearest thing to it *appears* to be a Provideo PV150, card

  • Hi Mark,

    It did specify spectra 8 in your lspci output. Below is product page.

    http://www.ituner.com/spectra.htm

    In my research I did find this related page.

    http://www.linuxconsulting.ro/spectra8/

    This does state that with latest internal driver, it is detected and works as the ProVision 150. The card=98,… is correct.

    The matter of reducing all the settings to 4 rather than 8 may help.

    coring is a luma setting. See:

    https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Bttv#insmod_Options

    Not sure and someone else maybe can shed better light on the setting. By default it is disabled and I would tend to think it can be removed.

    Regards

    Phil

  • Hi Mark,

    You have the setting of 16 which maybe correct for how many feeds you are taking/processing. If less I maybe tempted to drop it to the default
    8. If the device is running as close to or at default and no hickups –
    all the better. :-)

    Regards

    Phil