Re: Apparent timeouts

Thanks for this Greg, Tõivo and Olaf,

Please remember in reading my reply that I am about two orders of 
magnitude less system savvy than you and most of the list participants.

I am under Ubuntu 22.04.03 on a new ASUS Vivobook portable, which is a 
slightly-above-entry-level machine with Core i5 chip, 8 GB of RAM and a 
512 GB SSD. My version of Unison is 2.51.5. ASUS says that their port is 
"USB 3.2 Gen 1" capable of transferring up to 5 Gb/s.

As I said before I have never had a similar problem with Unison in the 
past, even synchronizing on another computer the same approximately 50 
GB file system with an HDD through a USB 2.0 port (it is of course slow 
but works fine). The present USB flash drive is a new one made by a 
reputable company (SanDisk) and has given no problems with simple 
copying of file systems of several tens of GB. I am synchronizing my 
/home ext4 partition with a clone on an ext4 partition that I created on 
the flash drive with gparted.

The synchronization with Unison seems to get hung up particularly with 
two large files of 2.7 and 1.0 GB. If I ask Unison to skip these files 
it normally synchronizes the rest without problem. If one of these files 
in in the sync list, Unison gets up to 99% of the file then seems to 
stay there for at least a minute, then I get a Ubuntu message that the 
communication with Ubuntu has stopped (I'm using the French Ubuntu 
interface, could give you the precise wording if useful) and asks me to 
either wait or quit. When I click "wait" I normally get the same error 
message back within a few seconds. If I keep pushing the "wait" button 
the file is sometimes processed after perhaps a half-dozen times, else I 
push "quit" and re-scan and perhaps it works after a few "wait" button 
actions.

I am right now away from home and not in position to try the USB drive 
with other computers or the present computer with an external SSD or 
HDD. I will do this within a couple of weeks, as well as trying to 
upgrade to Unison 2.53.3, and report back to you.

Sorry I don't understand "using the TUI, no -repeat, no fsmonitor". If 
these are command options, could you give me the command to integrate 
them into the call from my gnome desktop /*unison-2.51.5+4.13-gtk*/?

Thanks again and best regards,

     John

Le 21/01/2024 à 21:24, Greg Troxel a écrit :
> John Rose<[email protected]>  writes:
>
>> I have been using Unison for about a decade under several Ubuntu LTS
>> versions without any major problems. I have just upgraded to a new
>> computer using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
> What version of Unison are you using?   We always recommend updating to
> the current release (or later from git master).
>
>> In the past I have always connected to another computer or to an
>> external SSD, but right now I am obliged for a while to synchronize
>> with a USB 3.2 flash drive. I find that for large files (several
>> hundred MB) I get a message saying Unison has stopped and asking
>> whether I want to wait or quit. If I say wait the synchronization
>> eventually restarts (sometimes after what seems to be at least a
>> minute), and I have to repeatedly say "wait" to complete the
>> synchronization.
> You don't explain what "restarts" mean or what is issuing that mesage.
>
> As always, I recommend reducing to the simplest case possible,
> specifically using the TUI, no -repeat, no fsmonitor.
>
> The real question of course is what is going on.   It could be that the
> flash drive or the USB port (is it really a USB3 port?) is slow, that
> the OS has a bug, that unison has a bug (your report doesn't really lead
> me to think that way at all), or that copying data takes a while and
> someting about your desktop environment (which is what?) is twitching
> and complaining when it shouldn't.
>
> Also, I'd try rsync of the data to another dir on the flashdrive and see
> what happens.  Until you know that the flashdrive and its filesystem
> work as you expect, it doesn't make sense to debug anything more
> complicate.d.
>
> You didn't explain what kind of filesystem and what kind of async
> options, if any, and if it's journaling.
>
>> Could something be wrong with my hardware/software system or possibly
>> perhaps it's just that synchronizing with a USB flash drive gives
>> timeout problems relative to an external SSD (in the past with another
> You aren't necessarily having a "Timeout problem".  You could be having
> a "buggy complaint of timeout."  But there could be a real issue.
>
>> computer I connected to an external SSD with a USB 2.0 port and got
>> slow transfers but no timeouts)? Is there a set-up parameter to
>> increase the timeout threshold or something else to eliminate or
>> reduce this problem?
> I egrepped the sources quickly and don't find a mechanism like you
> experienced.  Please figure out if it's from the desktop environment.

-- 
************

                John B. Rose
                1 Bis rue des Châtre-Sacs
                92310 Sèvres, France

                Email:[email protected]

-- 
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].