Re: 2.4.35 SMP: ext3_readdir: bad entry in directory #323888: rec_len is smaller than minimal

[Ville Herva <v@iki.fi>]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 05:12:06PM +0200, you [Jan Kara] wrote:
>   Hello,
> 
> > I got a bunch of these into dmesg:
> > 
> > EXT3-fs error (device sd(8,2)): ext3_readdir: bad entry in directory #323880: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0, name_len=0
> > EXT3-fs error (device sd(8,2)): ext3_readdir: bad entry in directory #323888: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0, name_len=0
> > EXT3-fs error (device sd(8,2)): ext3_readdir: bad entry in directory #323882: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0, name_len=0
> > 
> > The kernel is 2.4.35 SMP, dual-processor. The scsi driver is Fusion MPT SCSI
> > Host driver 2.05.16.
> > 
> > The device is /dev/sda2, root fs.
> > 
> > One line per each directory had dropped into dmesg each night (I think
> > during updatedb) before I noticed.
>   Interesting. Can you look (using debugfs) on the content of the
> /usr/share/doc/ directory? It seems like parts of it have been zeroed
> out...

Unfortunately, no. I removed those directories because those were the only
ones causing problems and wasn't able to reboot for a proper fsck
immediately. The rm -rf command gave no errors (to stdout or dmesg), and a
read-only fsck right after that gave no errors on the directory structure.

Sorry for the sparse details, but when you have these kind of problems on
live servers, you tend to forget the debuggability...



-- v -- 

v@iki.fi

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