Kernel 3.4 behaves weirdly with flash drives

[Ankur Sinha]

Hi folks,

In kernels 3.4 and 3.4.2, the kernel gets the size of my pen drives
wrong: it thinks they're EB[1] in size, when they're actually only 4GB
and 8GB. This issue is not present in the 3.3 kernel.

I was wondering if any one else is facing the same issue? The bug is
filed here[2].

As a result, I cannot use stuff like fdisk on my system too. It
complains:
> [root@ankur ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb
> Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.21.2).
>
> Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
> Be careful before using the write command.
>
> WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
>
> WARNING: The size of this disk is 1122759.7 TB (18302628885633696256 bytes).
> DOS partition table format can not be used on drives for volumes
> larger than (2199023255040 bytes) for 512-byte sectors. Use parted(1) and GUID
> partition table format (GPT).
>
> fdisk: unable to seek on /dev/sdb: Invalid argument
> [root@ankur ~]#

It even prevents me from creating USB fedora installers:
> [root@ankur ~]# dd if=/home/ankur/Downloads/torrents/rtorrent_completed/Fedora-17-ISOs/Fedora-17-x86_64-DVD/Fedora-17-x86_64-DVD.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=8M
> dd: writing `/dev/sdb': No space left on device
> 1+0 records in
> 0+0 records out
> 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.105326 s, 0.0 kB/s
> [root@ankur ~]#

dd worked flawlessly with the 3.3 kernel.

I now have only one 3.3 kernel left on my system. Another broken 3.4
kernel will mean I get stuck with this bug. I've increased the
installonly_limit in yum.conf to keep 3.3 around for the time being. Any
hints/fixes? :)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exabyte
[2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=831807

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 06/19/2012 11:22 AM, Ankur Sinha wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> In kernels 3.4 and 3.4.2, the kernel gets the size of my pen drives
> wrong: it thinks they're EB[1] in size, when they're actually only 4GB
> and 8GB. This issue is not present in the 3.3 kernel.
>
> I was wondering if any one else is facing the same issue?

This is a known issue in the 3.4 kernel, a fix is being worked on upstream,
see:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.usb.general/65976

I think it is worth considering adding the proposed fix to the Fedora
3.4 kernels for now, as it seems a lot of people are bitten by this,
and the proposed fix is pretty save.

Regards,

Hans

[Ankur Sinha]

On Tue, 2012-06-19 at 14:47 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> This is a known issue in the 3.4 kernel, a fix is being worked on
> upstream,
> see:
> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.usb.general/65976
>
> I think it is worth considering adding the proposed fix to the Fedora
> 3.4 kernels for now, as it seems a lot of people are bitten by this,
> and the proposed fix is pretty save.
>
> Regards,
>
> Hans

Ah! Great to know! Thanks Hans.

I was beginning to think my devices are faulty..

[Ankur Sinha]

On Tue, 2012-06-19 at 14:47 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> I think it is worth considering adding the proposed fix to the Fedora
> 3.4 kernels for now, as it seems a lot of people are bitten by this,
> and the proposed fix is pretty save.

Fedora Kernel maintainers: Please can we have this patch included until
upstream merges it?

[Josh Boyer]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 5:22 AM, Ankur Sinha  wrote:
> I now have only one 3.3 kernel left on my system. Another broken 3.4
> kernel will mean I get stuck with this bug. I've increased the
> installonly_limit in yum.conf to keep 3.3 around for the time being. Any
> hints/fixes? :)

You don't need to do that.  If you're booted into the 3.3 kernel, yum
shouldn't remove it.  It'll just update one of the 2 3.4 kernels you
have installed instead.

josh