failing nic symptoms

Message

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Wed Dec 17, 2025 9:28 am

I have nearly 2 identical machines and the one I use daily was experiencing 'slow' connectivity to another machine within the network. By slow, I mean that SSH was slow to show my typing, it didn't feel responsive, the keystrokes appearing would be delayed. Anyways, I finally decided to swap NICs from my backup machine to the primary and, voila, it instantly improved. I had tried replacing the switch and access point my devices go through, but that had no effect.

That said, if a NIC is failing, wouldn't I see something in dmesg or would it be entirely possible that I would only see the TCP retry / duplicate ACK and all of that stuff? Oddly enough, I didn't measure any loss in performance externally, but internally, I could 'feel' the difference. I no longer run iperf nightly to measure performance on the network, but otherwise, file transfers didn't seem terribly slow even though SSH felt sluggish.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Dec 17, 2025 9:47 am

o5gmmob8,

I would expect to see dropped packets in ping or Tx/Rx errors in the ifconfig output, or both, if you had network hardware problems.

I suspect that if you put the 'faulty' NIC back, the problem will not recurr too.
ssh gets slow when the system is busy or low on memory.
I've seen ssh take over 30 min to respond on a busy Raspberry Pi 4, so it's not an indicator of a network problem.
Especially when everything else works.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Wed Dec 17, 2025 9:50 am

Hmm, the only other 'odd' thing with this machine was that IO has been slow, but the drive is newer and the error count is still relatively low compared to other drives where performance seemingly suddenly tanked.

The system is not terribly loaded though, but SSH was sluggish with that NIC consistently.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Dec 17, 2025 10:03 am

o5gmmob8,

Sluggish even after a reboot?
Restarting would have fixed a 'memory leak' ... until the next time.

Some drive errors are more serious than others.
A drive with a non zero Pending Sector Count is scrap. It cannot read it's own writing.
A non zero Reallocated Sector count is a sign of wear and tear.
Reallocated sectors do make mechanicial drives slower as they incurr extra seeks.
However, read ahead should hide that in normal operation.
Post smartctrl -x /dev/... if you want me to look over the smart data.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Wed Dec 17, 2025 10:29 am

Yes, I did reboot. But here is the kicker. I moved it to my backup system and when I SSH to that, I feel the same sluggishness there. I haven't bothered running tcpdump, but when I ran it earlier, that is when I saw constant duplicate ACKS and other stuff that didn't look good.

Hmm, so I think I normally use smartctl -a, not x, but with x, I am seeing this and what is concerning (perhaps just because I'm using -x) is the error section printing the commands that caused the error, that seems like the drive is not happy. Full smartctl:

Code: Select all

smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [x86_64-linux-6.12.41-gentoo-dist-hardened] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Blue (CMR)
Device Model:     WDC WD5000AAKX-00ERMA0
Serial Number:    WD-WCC2EF450534
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2b22182fd
Firmware Version: 15.01H15
User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database 7.5/6014
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Wed Dec 17 05:26:48 2025 EST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
AAM feature is:   Unavailable
APM feature is:   Unavailable
Rd look-ahead is: Enabled
Write cache is:   Enabled
DSN feature is:   Unavailable
ATA Security is:  Disabled, frozen [SEC2]

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x84) Offline data collection activity
                                        was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                ( 8280) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  84) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     POSR-K   200   200   051    -    55
  3 Spin_Up_Time            POS--K   148   137   021    -    3566
  4 Start_Stop_Count        -O--CK   083   083   000    -    17677
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   200   200   140    -    0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         -OSR-K   200   200   000    -    0
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   018   018   000    -    60511
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        -O--CK   100   100   000    -    0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count -O--CK   100   100   000    -    0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   100   100   000    -    598
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK   200   200   000    -    311
193 Load_Cycle_Count        -O--CK   195   195   000    -    17372
194 Temperature_Celsius     -O---K   114   097   000    -    29
196 Reallocated_Event_Count -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   ----CK   200   200   000    -    0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -O--CK   200   200   000    -    0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   ---R--   200   200   000    -    0
                            ||||||_ K auto-keep
                            |||||__ C event count
                            ||||___ R error rate
                            |||____ S speed/performance
                            ||_____ O updated online
                            |______ P prefailure warning

General Purpose Log Directory Version 1
SMART           Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
Address    Access  R/W   Size  Description
0x00       GPL,SL  R/O      1  Log Directory
0x01           SL  R/O      1  Summary SMART error log
0x02           SL  R/O      5  Comprehensive SMART error log
0x03       GPL     R/O      6  Ext. Comprehensive SMART error log
0x06           SL  R/O      1  SMART self-test log
0x07       GPL     R/O      1  Extended self-test log
0x09           SL  R/W      1  Selective self-test log
0x10       GPL     R/O      1  NCQ Command Error log
0x11       GPL     R/O      1  SATA Phy Event Counters log
0x80-0x9f  GPL,SL  R/W     16  Host vendor specific log
0xa0-0xa7  GPL,SL  VS      16  Device vendor specific log
0xa8-0xb5  GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xb6       GPL     VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xb7       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xbd       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xc0       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xc1       GPL     VS      24  Device vendor specific log
0xe0       GPL,SL  R/W      1  SCT Command/Status
0xe1       GPL,SL  R/W      1  SCT Data Transfer

SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Version: 1 (6 sectors)
Device Error Count: 55 (device log contains only the most recent 24 errors)
        CR     = Command Register
        FEATR  = Features Register
        COUNT  = Count (was: Sector Count) Register
        LBA_48 = Upper bytes of LBA High/Mid/Low Registers ]  ATA-8
        LH     = LBA High (was: Cylinder High) Register    ]   LBA
        LM     = LBA Mid (was: Cylinder Low) Register      ] Register
        LL     = LBA Low (was: Sector Number) Register     ]
        DV     = Device (was: Device/Head) Register
        DC     = Device Control Register
        ER     = Error register
        ST     = Status register
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 55 [6] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19636 hours (818 days + 4 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 00 00 00 04 25 d6 19 40 00  Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  60 00 01 00 30 00 00 04 25 d6 19 40 00     00:16:16.911  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 b8 00 28 00 00 01 7c 84 18 40 00     00:16:16.901  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 01 00 20 00 00 04 25 d6 18 40 00     00:16:16.901  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 01 00 18 00 00 04 25 d6 17 40 00     00:16:16.899  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 01 00 10 00 00 04 25 d6 16 40 00     00:16:16.899  READ FPDMA QUEUED

Error 54 [5] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19636 hours (818 days + 4 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 40 00  Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  60 00 20 00 a8 00 00 04 25 d6 00 40 00     00:16:14.920  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 40 00 a0 00 00 01 7c 83 d8 40 00     00:16:14.911  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 20 00 98 00 00 04 25 d3 e0 40 00     00:16:14.897  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  60 00 08 00 90 00 00 0d e7 26 30 40 00     00:16:14.882  READ FPDMA QUEUED
  ea 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 00     00:16:14.790  FLUSH CACHE EXT

Error 53 [4] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19489 hours (812 days + 1 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  Error: UNC 1 sectors at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  6d+22:25:25.721  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 18 e0 00  6d+22:25:25.721  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 17 e0 00  6d+22:25:25.721  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 16 e0 00  6d+22:25:25.720  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 15 e0 00  6d+22:25:25.720  READ DMA EXT

Error 52 [3] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19489 hours (812 days + 1 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 20 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  Error: UNC 32 sectors at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  25 00 00 00 20 00 00 04 25 d6 00 e0 00  6d+22:25:23.956  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 20 00 00 04 25 d4 00 e0 00  6d+22:25:23.947  READ DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 08 00 00 04 25 d2 f0 e0 00  6d+22:25:23.947  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 20 00 00 1e a4 0a 00 e0 00  6d+22:25:23.947  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 20 00 00 1e a4 a0 60 e0 00  6d+22:25:23.946  WRITE DMA EXT

Error 51 [2] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19370 hours (807 days + 2 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  Error: UNC 1 sectors at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  1d+23:03:21.561  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 18 e0 00  1d+23:03:21.561  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 17 e0 00  1d+23:03:21.561  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 16 e0 00  1d+23:03:21.561  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 15 e0 00  1d+23:03:21.560  READ DMA EXT

Error 50 [1] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19370 hours (807 days + 2 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 40 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  Error: UNC 64 sectors at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  25 00 00 00 40 00 00 04 25 d5 e0 e0 00  1d+23:03:19.718  READ DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 08 00 00 04 25 d4 78 e0 00  1d+23:03:19.718  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 08 00 00 04 25 d4 40 e0 00  1d+23:03:19.711  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 08 00 00 04 25 d4 28 e0 00  1d+23:03:19.711  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 10 00 00 04 25 d4 10 e0 00  1d+23:03:19.711  WRITE DMA EXT

Error 49 [0] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19370 hours (807 days + 2 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  Error: UNC 1 sectors at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  1d+22:55:17.974  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 18 e0 00  1d+22:55:17.974  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 17 e0 00  1d+22:55:17.974  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 16 e0 00  1d+22:55:17.974  READ DMA EXT
  25 00 00 00 01 00 00 04 25 d6 15 e0 00  1d+22:55:17.974  READ DMA EXT

Error 48 [23] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19370 hours (807 days + 2 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 20 00 00 04 25 d6 19 e0 00  Error: UNC 32 sectors at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

  Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FEATR COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC  Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- == -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --  ---------------  --------------------
  25 00 00 00 20 00 00 04 25 d6 00 e0 00  1d+22:55:15.799  READ DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 80 00 00 00 dc 19 60 e0 00  1d+22:55:15.798  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 80 00 00 00 85 3a 20 e0 00  1d+22:55:15.798  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 08 00 00 0e 57 34 30 e0 00  1d+22:55:15.798  WRITE DMA EXT
  35 00 00 00 05 00 00 0e 57 34 38 e0 00  1d+22:55:15.798  WRITE DMA EXT

SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Status Version:                  3
SCT Version (vendor specific):       258 (0x0102)
Device State:                        Active (0)
Current Temperature:                    29 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature:     27/29 Celsius
Lifetime    Min/Max Temperature:      0/46 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count:   0/0

SCT Temperature History Version:     2
Temperature Sampling Period:         1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval:        1 minute
Min/Max recommended Temperature:      0/60 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit:           -41/85 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index):    478 (435)

Index    Estimated Time   Temperature Celsius
 436    2025-12-16 21:29    27  ********
 ...    ..(224 skipped).    ..  ********
 183    2025-12-17 01:14    27  ********
 184    2025-12-17 01:15    28  *********
 ...    ..( 13 skipped).    ..  *********
 198    2025-12-17 01:29    28  *********
 199    2025-12-17 01:30    27  ********
 ...    ..(  2 skipped).    ..  ********
 202    2025-12-17 01:33    27  ********
 203    2025-12-17 01:34    28  *********
 204    2025-12-17 01:35    27  ********
 205    2025-12-17 01:36    27  ********
 206    2025-12-17 01:37    28  *********
 207    2025-12-17 01:38    27  ********
 208    2025-12-17 01:39    28  *********
 209    2025-12-17 01:40    28  *********
 210    2025-12-17 01:41    28  *********
 211    2025-12-17 01:42    27  ********
 212    2025-12-17 01:43    28  *********
 213    2025-12-17 01:44    28  *********
 214    2025-12-17 01:45    27  ********
 215    2025-12-17 01:46    28  *********
 216    2025-12-17 01:47    27  ********
 217    2025-12-17 01:48    27  ********
 218    2025-12-17 01:49    27  ********
 219    2025-12-17 01:50    28  *********
 220    2025-12-17 01:51    28  *********
 221    2025-12-17 01:52    27  ********
 222    2025-12-17 01:53     ?  -
 223    2025-12-17 01:54    28  *********
 224    2025-12-17 01:55    28  *********
 225    2025-12-17 01:56    28  *********
 226    2025-12-17 01:57    29  **********
 227    2025-12-17 01:58    28  *********
 ...    ..( 17 skipped).    ..  *********
 245    2025-12-17 02:16    28  *********
 246    2025-12-17 02:17    27  ********
 247    2025-12-17 02:18    27  ********
 248    2025-12-17 02:19    28  *********
 249    2025-12-17 02:20    28  *********
 250    2025-12-17 02:21    27  ********
 251    2025-12-17 02:22    27  ********
 252    2025-12-17 02:23    27  ********
 253    2025-12-17 02:24    28  *********
 254    2025-12-17 02:25    27  ********
 255    2025-12-17 02:26    28  *********
 ...    ..(  4 skipped).    ..  *********
 260    2025-12-17 02:31    28  *********
 261    2025-12-17 02:32    27  ********
 262    2025-12-17 02:33    27  ********
 263    2025-12-17 02:34    28  *********
 264    2025-12-17 02:35    27  ********
 265    2025-12-17 02:36    28  *********
 266    2025-12-17 02:37    28  *********
 267    2025-12-17 02:38    28  *********
 268    2025-12-17 02:39    27  ********
 269    2025-12-17 02:40    27  ********
 270    2025-12-17 02:41    28  *********
 271    2025-12-17 02:42    27  ********
 272    2025-12-17 02:43    28  *********
 273    2025-12-17 02:44    28  *********
 274    2025-12-17 02:45    27  ********
 275    2025-12-17 02:46    28  *********
 ...    ..( 34 skipped).    ..  *********
 310    2025-12-17 03:21    28  *********
 311    2025-12-17 03:22    29  **********
 ...    ..(  5 skipped).    ..  **********
 317    2025-12-17 03:28    29  **********
 318    2025-12-17 03:29    27  ********
 ...    ..(116 skipped).    ..  ********
 435    2025-12-17 05:26    27  ********

SCT Error Recovery Control command not supported

Device Statistics (GP/SMART Log 0x04) not supported

Pending Defects log (GP Log 0x0c) not supported

SATA Phy Event Counters (GP Log 0x11)
ID      Size     Value  Description
0x0001  2            0  Command failed due to ICRC error
0x0002  2            0  R_ERR response for data FIS
0x0003  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host data FIS
0x0004  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS
0x0005  2            0  R_ERR response for non-data FIS
0x0006  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host non-data FIS
0x0007  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS
0x000a  2            3  Device-to-host register FISes sent due to a COMRESET
0x000b  2            0  CRC errors within host-to-device FIS
0x8000  4         5685  Vendor specific

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Dec 17, 2025 10:43 am

o5gmmob8,

The drive is doing retries but not enough to force a reallocation.

Code: Select all

Error 55 [6] occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 19636 hours (818 days + 4 hours)
  When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

  After command completion occurred, registers were:
  ER -- ST COUNT  LBA_48  LH LM LL DV DC
  -- -- -- == -- == == == -- -- -- -- --
  40 -- 51 00 00 00 00 04 25 d6 19 40 00  Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0425d619 = 69588505

Notice that its the same sector in the errors.
Retries are slow.

A write to that sector may either force a reallocation or fix it.
Right now, there is data there you need.

It's worth trying a long test. That's the drive doing a full surface scan without passing any data over the interface.
It will stop at the first unreadable sector, no matter if it's used or not.
It can trigger some reallocations too.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Sat Dec 20, 2025 8:57 pm

Ok, in the meantime, I started noticing the sluggishness again with the NICs still swapped, so perhaps the NICs aren't the issue. I only seem to notice it with SSH.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sun Dec 21, 2025 11:33 am

o5gmmob8,

I suspect a reboot will fix the sluggishness ... fbr a while.

Before you try a reboot, what does free say about your memory use?

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Sun Dec 21, 2025 11:43 am

Hmm, so I think it must be the laptop. The laptop has a USB NIC (docking station) and wifi. It seems to be sluggish over both wifi and ethernet. I would understand wifi to some extent, but the AP is about 1-ft away from it. I connected from another workstation to my primary workstation and it felt 'normal'.

The laptop has 16G of memory

Code: Select all

               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           15238         850       14513           1          85       14388
Swap:              0           0           0

Eh, it is one of those oddities, I can capture a pcap file and I'm certain it would show TCP retransmission / duplicate ACKs, etc.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sun Dec 21, 2025 11:50 am

o5gmmob8,

It not a memory leak. That's good. We have learned one thing that it's not.

Duplicate ACKs?
That suggests that IP addresses on your network segment are not unique.
That would cause retries and a big mess.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Sun Dec 21, 2025 11:53 am

Hmm, ok, I didn't check the MAC addresses involved. I assumed it was a single MAC address.

That is a possibility. I run static DHCP and added a device recently. As that shifted the other devices, perhaps some are still holding onto a stale IP. I have my lease time set to 30m so I can track devices better (when they come onto the network and when they disappear).

b11n · Post by **b11n** » Sun Dec 21, 2025 5:23 pm

o5gmmob8 wrote:the AP is about 1-ft away from it.

that may actually be too close, see if the situation improves by moving it a few metres – sorry, yards – away.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Wed Dec 24, 2025 5:27 pm

No worries, meters are easier to work with. I thought about that too - ok, will try that out.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Wed Dec 24, 2025 6:02 pm

Eh, perhaps all of this networking stuff is related. I still don't think my firewall is a 1:1 match of my pf ruleset or as close as can be. The lingering issues I seem to have are:

1. NTP traffic isn't getting routed back to my local NTP server - I think this causes a cascading failure where my chromecast stops working. I have a rule in my prerouting chain that redirects to my physical workstation listening on a virtual NIC. My workstation has the router running in an incus container. I was going to run both workstation and router in a container to minimize reboots, but that is a separate story.
2. TCP retries
3. I cannot chromecast from my workstation, but can from my phone

I thought I was adept with this stuff, but it seems to elude me now. I can ping from other systems to the workstation just fine, but NTP clients seemingly aren't getting responses. I have run a tcpdump confirming the same. My workstation has no firewall rules whereas the router has all the firewall rules which also includes ones for NTP.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Thu Dec 25, 2025 4:36 pm

I *think* I finally figured out my NTP issue. I put all of my rules to allow outbound NTP in the prerouting chain instead of the filter chain, I have rules there to redirect all other outbound NTP traffic to my NTP server and for whatever reason, I put the rules to allow outbound NTP there too. I'm not sure why, silly me.

At least, I think NTP is working now. So far, my clock is synced:

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11/20 peers valid, clock synced, stratum 2

I think my chromecast issue may be sorted out too, for whatever reason, I cannot cast using the UUID, but can cast using the address. I *think* mDNS is working fine, but I suppose that might be an issue.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Mon Jan 19, 2026 8:54 pm

I have moved the AP about a meter away and had it there since your post, about a month ago. I'm still experiencing the issue.

It is strange because it is off and on. The latest thing I tried was assigning a higher metric to my wlan interface and initial results were good, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to stick. I could simply disable wireless while I have a wired connection and I think I must do that for an extended period of time to confirm it is the wireless.

Scratching my head.

o5gmmob8 · Post by **o5gmmob8** » Wed Mar 18, 2026 1:32 pm

I *think* I figured out the SSH issue. I think it boils down to:

/etc/ssh/ssh_config

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ControlPersist 10m

While I have used this configuration for years, 10+, I was for a long while using NetworkManager to manage my interfaces and if I recall correctly, I want to say that whenever I had a wired connection, wireless was turned off. Either that, or my BIOS did that automatically.

One other thing that still bugs me is how terrible the wireless performance is. While doing a simple bandwidth test (when on wifi) using fast.com indicates decent bandwidth, I experience terminal lag over SSH. In any case, as least I can avoid that now when I'm connected via a wired connection.