[Sticky] Monterey Crash/kernel panics

@softraid-support 

After several pink screen crashes and reboots, it's gotten to a stable desktop launch. I can see my drives (hooray!) and the contents on them (also hooray!). The SoftRaid GUI shows a lot of IO errors, primary / secondary disc failures, and multiple mirror failures (ack!). I'm running a copy process to an external drive to rescue my files, then will run validation on the array volumes to see if that stabilizes the array comms. 

I didn't do anything unusual to the drives or the array (unplugging it while writing, shaking it violently in protest of my favorite hockey team losing, etc). Not sure what got it into such a state of disarray...

Fingers crossed! Thank you for your help so far. Hoping I can get my data copied to an external drive and then work on making the Tbolt array happy again. 

@jhendow 

the way to "fix" all this, is clear all the io errors (Utilities menu), then "recover failed disks" if more than one disk in each volume shows out of sync. And when asked to validate, do so.

How does one change a RAID 5 stripe size from 16 kb to 64 kb? I realize a new RAID would need to be created.

The setup videos I found do not describe this option and its been a few years since I set up my RAID 5.

I know how to set up a new RAID but I don't recall how to select the stripe size. All I see on the SoftRAID videos are the "optimize for" video, photos, etc options.

I would like to grasp the whole process before I get started and miss this important detail. Does SoftRAID have a more granular manual?

Thanks.

@mavots 

Its OK, it is a new feature in 6.2. When you create a new volume, SoftRAID will then pop up a dialog box, asking you to confirm 16k, or switch to 64k. Select 64k.

@softraid-support Any brave souls at SoftRAID installing macOS Ventura?

😜

@papaskitch 

Yes we are just starting to install.

@softraid-support I just installed it and I'm beginning to poke around. The SoftRaid driver seems to work with no issues but the app throws up an error that says the OS isn't supported. Any terminal switches to bypass the OS version check? Not critical, but just want to see if the app will run.

I see error installing the driver, but it installed (the current beta) and the volume is mounted, performance is fine.

So it does not appear Ventura will present any major challenges, but I am sure there are tweaks required for full compatibility.

@woodstocknick You need to run the latest SoftRAID beta.

@softraid-support any sign of the RAID5 fix you were expecting to get from Apple in macOS Ventura?

@papaskitch 

I am still putting together test systems, so I do not know yet, but we have not been asked to test a fix, so I doubt it.

@softraid-support Dang it. Well, a guy can dream right?

For what it's worth, I seem to be chugging along without any panics using RAID5 with the 64K stripe size so it's really just curiosity at the moment.

Please excuse me if I come across frustrated... its because I am.  I have lost so many work hours trying to make softraid work as I move my workflow from Intel to Apple Silicon.  

I have installed Softraid 6.2.1 (it says it is compatible with M1s.  It certainly is not.  The reason for using Softraid instead of Apple Raid is being able to take advantage of Raid 5.  And I read here that it is Raid 5 which is causing the crashes. 

With my softraid 5 thunderblade drives connected - my system crashes upon login.  And when I say crash, I mean it is as if someone pulled the power out.  I've never seen this on a Mac before. 

I have now spent one whole day (12+ hours) moving large amounts of data around so that I could deploy the 64K stripe workaround.  However, this did not work at all.  The same crash happens a few seconds after login.

I also tried using the 6.3 b20 BETA but that was even worse, as it wasn't showing both of my connected drives in finder, only one of them, and still crashed. 

I am in a professional workflow and completely rely on these drives to work.  I really need a solution now please.  I cannot send you a log as my system crashes before I am able to generate that.  

I have just uninstalled Softraid completely (all components) and await your further instructions and help. I hope you are able to respond today.  I have over 15K invested in Thunderblade and Thunderbay drives and I really need them to work with softraid 5.  Thank you.

@nicksyrett 

Sorry for your frustration. This forum is monitored (several times) daily.

When you created the RAID 5 volume with 64k Stripe unit size, and it panics, if you "report to Apple", is the panic a "DART" panic?

If so, the panic is the DART chip (which controls all Thunderbolt IO among other things) is crashing. Apple has been aware of this for a year, but has not released a fix yet. It generally does not happen with stripe unit size set to 64K, however.

Can you try two things?

restart without the enclosures connected. Wait 5 minutes. does the system panic when you plug them in?

Another test is only for the thunderbay. If you slightly pull out one drive, it won't panic the system. If you wait a few minutes, then push in the drive, does it rebuild and continue to work without the system crashing?

Is your system fully configured already (or could you try a clean install, without data migration)? I can show you how to keep the old system while doing a clean install.

Beta 20 should behave the same as 6.2.1, there are virtually no driver changes. (Neither is it a "fix" for this problem, as we have to have Apple provide the solution, it appears to be a threading issue in ARM/M1 computers.)

@softraid-support hey, since my Bay has been crashing and I was unable to use it, I have been using an external drive for my photo library. I read that I could reformat the Bay with RAID 5 64K stripes (whatever that is lol) and it should solve my issue ? How do I do that ? I do not mind loosing my data on the Bay since, like I said, I have been using a different drive since.