Bug 15666

Summary:	e2fsck -fD on ext4 breaks
Product:	File System	Reporter:	Nelson Chan (khcha.n.el)
Component:	ext4	Assignee:	fs_ext4 (fs_ext4)
Status:	RESOLVED PATCH_ALREADY_AVAILABLE
Severity:	normal	CC:	tytso
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:	2.6.32.10	Subsystem:
Regression:	No	Bisected commit-id:

Description Nelson Chan 2010-04-01 10:35:54 UTC

i did a e2fsck -fD on a ext4 filesystem, later a e2fsck -f complains a bunch of errors. if i e2fsck -fy would end up a bunch of files go into lost+found or simply lose trace.

Step to reproduce:
1. prepare a ext4 file system (dd if=/dev/zero of=test_ext4.img bs=1M count=1000 && mkfs.ext4 test_ext4.img)
2. mount it (mount -t ext4 -o rw,loop test_ext4.img /mnt/tmp)
3. put some files on it, it seems to me that tiny files would cause the issue
(cp -r /home/$USER/.gconf /mnt/tmp)
4. un mount it (umount /mnt/tmp)
5. e2fsck -f test_ext4.img  all good
6. e2fsck -fD test_ext4.img seems fine
7. e2fsck -f test_ext4.img here comes trouble...

Components version:
Distro: Archlinux
Architecture: x86_64

kernel 2.6.32.10
e2fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
	Using EXT2FS Library version 1.41.10, 10-Feb-2009

Comment 1 Nelson Chan 2010-04-01 10:39:23 UTC

just found that same issue appears on ext3 too.
Thanks

Comment 2 Theodore Tso 2010-04-01 11:50:10 UTC

This isn't a kernel bug (and this is a bugzilla for tracking kernel problems).

This was a bug in e2fsprogs 1.41.10, which was fixed in e2fsprogs 1.41.11.

I suggest you upgrade, and I apologize for the inconvenience.   In general data isn't lost, although files and directories do get dropped into the lost+found directory, and cleaning up can be a bit of a mess.

Best regards,

-- Ted