[smartmontools-support] smartctl -l error causes NVME to die on Debian unstable, Dell XPS 13 7390, Micron 2200S

[Christian Franke]

B wrote:
> I've discovered that running "smartctl -l error" against my new Dell 
> XPS 13 laptop with a Micron 2200S NVMe causes the drive to die. This 
> obviously causes the entire system to fail, because the filesystem is 
> no longer readable, until the power is pulled and then I can boot 
> normally again.
>
> The system is a Dell XPS 13 7390 with EFI version 1.3.1. The NVME is a 
> Micron 2200S NVMe 512GB.
>
> My OS is Debian unstable/sid, kernel package linux-image-5.3.0-3-amd64 
> (5.3.15-1), and smartctl --version says it's "7.0 2018-12-30 r4883 
> [x86_64-linux-5.3.0-3-amd64] (local build)".
>
> I first saw the problem when running smartctrl -a against the NVME 
> drive. Then I narrowed it down to being caused by "smartctrl -l error".
>
> When the drive dies I get repeating errors in my syslog:
>
>     kernel: DMAR: DRHD: handling fault status reg 3
>     kernel: DMAR: [DMA Read] Request device [71:00.0] fault addr 
> ffe48000 [fault reason 06] PTE Read access is not set
>
> Notably, the problem is only happening on a Debian unstable 
> installation and this is likely to be a Debian problem, but I figured 
> it was a good idea to report this here first since I usually don't 
> bother reporting bugs to Debian anymore, since they often take years 
> (this is not hyperbole) to even acknowledge bug reports for most 
> packages, including the kernel.

The smartmontools Debian package has a new maintainer. If possible, 
please report this issue in Debian bug tracker:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=smartmontools


> I have not yet been able to reproduce the problem on any Live images 
> yet, though I'm still trying. I've tested with 
> ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso and ubuntu-19.10-desktop-amd64.iso, 
> and I'm not seeing the issue there. Notably, Ubuntu 19.10 is on kernel 
> 5.3.0-18, which is pretty close to what is on Debian, but there must 
> be some difference somewhere.
>
> Many live images, including Debian's current stable Live Image, are 
> too old for the new hardware and are not booting at all, so my options 
> with testing are somewhat limited in that respect.
>
> Oh, also, I am not having this problem on two other systems with 
> different NVME drives (A Samsung and a WD), but both have the exact 
> same Debian unstable packages and versions, so there is clearly some 
> hardware factor in this.
>
> I have not tried swapping the NVME drive in the laptop yet because I 
> don't have a spare handy, but that is possible to arrange if desired.

Yes, please. It would be very interesting whether this also depends on 
NVMe drive firmware.


>
> Any ideas/comments?

Sorry, no. Linux NVMe support in smartmontools is now 3+ years old and I 
don't remember any similar problem report.