Hourly Console Error - Just Me?

No it is not normal, it happens most often when there is damage to the file system, but can happen when the volume unmounts unexpectedly. best to figure this out and resolve it. Errors liek this in the log indicate an issue, oft times hard to diagnose, if the problem is in the file system. If you have Disk Warrior and this is HFS, run it on this volume.

Posted by: @dmetz

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Before I waste a ton of time on this, I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing a similar error:

"Apr 02 09:32:39 - SoftRAID Driver: The SoftRAID volume "VideoRAID" (disk12) encountered an error (E00002C1). A program attempted to read or write to a volume which was not open."

I get this once an hour, all day every day.  It shows up in the SoftRAID log (Utilities > Show SoftRAID Log, or open Console.app).  Been going on for awhile now, and if it's normal/expected behavior, I'll simply ignore it, annoying as it is.

@dmetz 

Not having this issue here. 

@softraid-support

Hm.  Interesting.  The volume in question is an 8-disk SATA SSD RAID4 in a Thunderbay 8, formatted APFS.

It checks out fine in Disk Utility, I don't have any mount/unmount errors or issues.

I do regular maintenance on the host Mac and my storage, got into the habit decades ago.  Nothing apparently weird, no errors, just an hourly log entry.

EDIT:  I've had DiskWarrior since the beginning - love it!  I keep checking the Alsoft site for APFS compatibility, and will continue to do so.

Just as a follow-up, this issue remains as of August 2025.  Haven't been able to narrow it down.

@dmetz 
I have been digging into this and I have found a dozen support files that have multiple repeats of this entry, but nothing more than 3 times in a day, occasionally. Hourly, no, not even close.
So this has to be some process that is checking in if it is hourly.
Can you attach a Softraid support file? I can't find yours, I was sure you attached one once.

@softraid-support

I've also got a serious recurring problem where the RAID totally bogs down to where I can't even scrub tiny .mp4 video.

Scenario: working away normally, then 10 minutes in, can't do anything for about 15 seconds.  Then okay for a minute, then bog again.  Over and over again.  It's almost to the point where I want to throw this thing out the window.  These bogs don't happen with any other storage, and I now often work off of single NVMe drives in external TB enclosures.

@dmetz 
Sounds like an Indexing/spotlight issue. SoftRAID does not do any file level activity, it can only point MacOS where to read/write data that it has been asked "where does this go"?

Try disable spotlight on the volume. Does this issue stop? On large volumes, indexing can often go awry. You can re-enable it after a restart, if that resolves this and it will reindex.

@softraid-support 

I've always had Spotlight disabled for this volume - all of my externals, actually.

Was there anything interesting in the support file?

@dmetz 

There was nothing :"wrong", no.

SoftRAID's driver cannot "initiate" any I/O. So whatever is causing your issues is in MacOS, of which Spotlight is generally the main reason. If it is not indexing, something is making the Mac read the volume repeatedly. Any malware apps running? Anything doing background tasks?

I did not see anything obvious, but I am just seeing a snapshot of your system at the time you took the support file.

@softraid-support 

I don't run anti-virus or anything like that.  What's in the snapshot is what's typically running.  There are licensing daemons and other things that insist on running if I want to use my software, but WYSIWYG on that front.  I tend to be a one-app-at-a-time kind of guy (very old habit).

I'm less concerned about the log entries though, and far more affected by the constant bogging of the RAID volume.  There are no I/O errors, everything seems 'clean enough'.  It is a daily impediment that I need to resolve one way or another.  I just don't know how to trace it.

@dmetz 

Do a test second system install. It does not affect your existing system and you can delete it any time.
I suspect you won't see this issue on a clean install. Then you know it is not a hardware issue and does not affect or represent any hardware issues.

Run Disk Utility
Click on your startup internal
Click + volume
Name/save your volume
Shut down
Startup in recovery mode (hold the power button)
Select Options
Select "reinstall MacOS"
Point the installer to your new volume and install
Do NOT migrate data, etc. Use the same Admin name.
install SoftRAID. It will run. You can even activate on both systems.