JFFS2: scan leaves dirent for inode which has no valid data nodes

Hi,

I am running Linux 2.4.26 for MIPS-4k custom board and has the problem wich appears from time to time on one of the JFFS2 partitions.

The partition is mounted to /etc mount point. The following screenshot shows the problem (I have changed the real file name for confidentiality).

# touch /etc/any.file
touch: /etc/any.file: Input/output error
# echo ddd > /etc/any.file
/etc/any.file: cannot create (Input/output error)

It is worth to note, that 'ls' utility doesn't show this file in the list.

I have made a dump of the partition and examined it. I have found that there is a valid dirent for the file and there is no valid data nodes (all are obsolete).

The curcumstances that proceeded the appearance of the situation are unknown. It is also unknown was it a powerfail or it was a normal functioning.

My questions are:

1. Should the scan process during mounting mark as obsolete dirent nodes which has no valid data nodes?
2. Is this a bug when such dirent exists and there is no chanse to create/read/write a file with the same name?

I have browsed the mailing list archive and haven't found (or just missed) the problem in it. Maybe the problem were resolved in more recent 2.4.x kernels.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dmitry

Maybe. We don't keep track of such things though -- and when we detect it we _know_ there's something wrong, so it's not clear that writing to the file system is the right thing to do.

You should still be able to unlink it.

dwmw2

I was not and I am still not able to do any operation upon the file. The jffs2_read_inode() function marked the inode as bad and all I/O operations return EIO, even unlink() does.

For the moment, I have to find and eliminate the reason(s) that could lead to appearance of the situation. I think, there is some kind of a race here. My experience with the filesystem is much to be desired and I would appreciate any points to the possible places of error.

Thanks,
Dmitry