Preallocation failed

Hi,

after updating to 1.1.4, I get the error that pre-allocation failed when trying to do a capture. Is this incidentally the case (I have 44 GB free on the target) or has this something to do with the "known issues" item about "Preallocation on Airport Extreme Volumes"? My target volume is a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, and I think I was able to do captures even with less free space on that NAS with earlier volumes.

So my question is if the Preallocation issue might also apply to other manufacturers' NASes or if this is an issue specific to the Airport Extreme device?

The log says the following:

2009-12-14 12:00:01.153 +0100 ------- Capture to All Macs.quanta [2.733755.8554]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.153 +0100 Details archive: /Volumes/Daten/All Macs.quanta [2.733755.8554.5]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.153 +0100 #debug# executing [2.733755.8554.6]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# preallocation failed [2.733755.8554.7]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 Details preallocation [2.733755.8554.7.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# IO exception [2.733755.8554.7.1.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# API: FSAllocateFork [2.733755.8554.7.1.2]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# OSErr: -34 [2.733755.8554.7.1.3]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 Details Length: 33554432 [2.733755.8554.7.1.4]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 Details Pos: 798787284576 [2.733755.8554.7.1.5]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 Details File: /Volumes/Daten/All Macs.quanta/repository.data [2.733755.8554.7.1.6]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# preallocation failed [2.733755.8554.8]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 Details preallocation [2.733755.8554.8.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# IO exception [2.733755.8554.8.1.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# API: FSAllocateFork [2.733755.8554.8.1.2]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 #debug# OSErr: -34 [2.733755.8554.8.1.3]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.300 +0100 Details Length: 2097152 [2.733755.8554.8.1.4]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.301 +0100 Details Pos: 798787284576 [2.733755.8554.8.1.5]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.301 +0100 Details File: /Volumes/Daten/All Macs.quanta/repository.data [2.733755.8554.8.1.6]

2009-12-14 12:00:01.301 +0100 #debug# RepositoryPackage received kPreallocationFailedNotification [2.733755.8554.9]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.674 +0100 Failure Interrupted [2.733755.8554.10]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 Details disk full [2.733755.8554.10.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 #debug# DiskFull exception [2.733755.8554.10.1.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 Subrosa .Explain: diskfull [2.733755.8554.10.1.2]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 Subrosa .DiskFull: 1 [2.733755.8554.10.1.3]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 Details capacity: 985655656448 [2.733755.8554.10.1.4]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 Subrosa .SoftError: 1 [2.733755.8554.10.1.5]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.676 +0100 Details available: 48283779072 [2.733755.8554.10.1.6]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 #debug# caught exception [2.733755.8554.11]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Details disk full [2.733755.8554.11.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 #debug# DiskFull exception [2.733755.8554.11.1.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Subrosa .Explain: diskfull [2.733755.8554.11.1.2]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Subrosa .DiskFull: 1 [2.733755.8554.11.1.3]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Details capacity: 985655656448 [2.733755.8554.11.1.4]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Subrosa .SoftError: 1 [2.733755.8554.11.1.5]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Subrosa .Command: capture [2.733755.8554.11.1.6]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 Details available: 48283779072 [2.733755.8554.11.1.7]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100         Capture ran out of disk space [2.733755.8554.12]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100         There was insufficient free disk space to finish. Free some disk space by deleting any unneccessary files, or make the archive smaller by compressing it or merging layers. [2.733755.8554.12.1]

2009-12-14 12:00:16.677 +0100 ------- Capture incomplete (00:00) [2.733755.8554.13]

The pre-allocation size of "Length: 33554432" would only be 32 MB (if I did my math correctly), so with 44 GB available, that should not be a problem, should it?

Am I safe to apply the QRFilePreallocateDisable preference for a test if that remedies the issue or are there chances of ending up with a corrupt archive?

And a final note: The QRFilePreallocateDisable key does not yet seem to be listed here. Could you please add the description and the allowed key values there? Thanks!

-Christian

Christian,

Thanks for the reminder to document those settings. I've updated the advanced QRecall settings page. Look for the QRFilePreallocateDisable and QRFilePreallocateBugWorkaroundRule towards the bottom of the page.

I'd suggest starting by setting QRFilePreallocateBugWorkaroundRule to 1. This causes QRecall to assume that all volumes are affected by the pre-allocation bug and to use a workaround. This allows QRecall to continue to preallocate space (important to maintaining the integrity of the archive should the volume fill up), but avoids the pre-allocation bug in some versions of the OS and NAS drives.

If that fails to solve the problem, you can just turn off pre-allocation by setting QRFilePreallocateDisable to true.

James Bucanek wrote:I'd suggest starting by setting QRFilePreallocateBugWorkaroundRule to 1.

I did that and as far as I can tell, this solved my problem. Thank you!

Also, thanks for updating the Advanced QRecall settings page, and the explanations are - as always - thorough and easy to understand.

A suggestion would be to include the contents of that page in the manual (i.e. application help file), as that was where I first looked. Or include a link to said page if you do not want this info to be available too easily

-Christian