Network Connection Fails [SOLVED]

[jackmason]

Started a 1GB transfer of 250,000+ files over 1000 mips ethernet from a Windows 7 Pro server to newly installed Mint 14 250GB mdadm RAID1 device. Everything was going fine, albeit very slowly, for about 300MB, at which time a Windows 7 home file transfer to the Windows 7 Pro transfer began for about 600 files totaling about 250MB. When the Windows to Windows transfer began, the Mint transfer blew off with a cannot copy error on every file it tried.

After the Windows to Windows transfer terminated normally, Mint still would not resume, nor could Mint access the Windows 7 Pro drive. Starting a new instance did not fix the problem. Additionally, two other Windows 7 Home computers got blown off the Windows 7 Pro drive and had to re-establish a connection, which they did without rebooting.

Mint could only re-establish a connection after rebooting, at which point it could reconnect and again start transferring files.

We rejected ubuntu 12.04 LTS because during the process of installation we inadvertently crashed it three times, once with FireFox, once with a umask, and once unknown. Mint appeared more stable until now, but if file access/transfers are going to be a problem, we may have to stay with Windows as a server.

Is this a known problem with Mint? With Linux?

[jackmason]

It is Mint 14 Cinnamon having this problem.

[TheForumTroll]

Is this correct:

1. Transfer files with Mint from a Windows host
2. Start transferring files with another Windows client from/to the same host as Mint is already accessing
3. Mint transfer breaks and cannot access the files

If that is correct, it sounds more like a Windows problem with Mint, than a Mint problem with Windows (I.E. Windows messed up and Mint is denied access to the files (a Windows error, not a Mint error)). If not, I'm not sure what you are asking

[jackmason]

Your recap of the situation is correct. And, it could be Windows having the problem since two Windows computers were blown off the Windows server at the same time. The reason I focused on Mint was it failed to recover without rebooting whereas the Windows computers could immediately reconnect.

Mint does appear more fragile in some ways than Windows when it comes to handling the network. I abandoned ubuntu because I was able to crash it three times (once with Firefox accessing a valid website, once with a umask, and I cannot remember the third) which left me feeling it was too vunerable to user actions.

The only real issues I have seen with Mint so far are three:

1. It cannot install and run on anything other than sda. That is a problem for new Intel boards that only have SATA III on the first two ports, SATA II on the other two. We had to physically make our system drive sda, install Mint, then switch it back to sdc so sda and sdb could be used as a RAID drive.

2. Handling of network errors appears less robust than we would wish (per this problem).

3. There are times Mint appears to "freeze" and no text can be entered for from 10 to 90 seconds, after which anything typed during that interval suddenly appears. It is as if a process is running that is hogging the scheduler so no screen text can be displayed. However, new windows can be created (terminal, Firefox, etc.) and closed, and any mouse action appears to be performed.

So, in lieu of further info, I will write this one off to #2 above.

Thanks for your feedback.

[jackmason]

See previous post. Did not know how to flag it as "solved" since there was no button.