Failed to mount external drive - New problem?

[MoeSats]

Hi everyone,

Noob here. I had my Raspberry Pi 4 Umbrel Node offline for several weeks. Before, it had been running smoothly. Yesterday, when I tried to fire it up, I ran into the following error message displayed in my browser:

Error: Failed to mount external drive

I then searched the forums and found this post, dealing with the exact same issue: Error: Failed to mount external drive

I did as suggested and created a log. However, there seem to be different issues than in the above post. Here’s the log:

Umbrel version

0.5.3

Flashed OS version

v0.5.3

Raspberry Pi Model

Revision : c03115
Serial : 100000005acf0d79
Model : Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5

Firmware

Dec 1 2021 15:01:54
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 71bd3109023a0c8575585ba87cbb374d2eeb038f (clean) (release) (start)

Temperature

temp=29.7’C

Throttling

throttled=0x0

Memory usage

          total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available

Mem: 3.8G 120M 3.2G 8.0M 433M 3.6G
Swap: 0B 0B 0B

total: 3.2%
system: 3.2%

Memory monitor logs

tail: cannot open ‘/home/umbrel/umbrel/scripts/…/logs/memory-monitor.log’ for reading: No such file or directory

Filesystem information

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 29G 3.0G 24G 11% /
/dev/root 29G 3.0G 24G 11% /

Startup service logs

– Logs begin at Fri 2023-09-08 11:18:45 UTC, end at Fri 2023-09-08 11:38:32 UTC. –
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Umbrel Startup Service.
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: umbrel-startup.service: Job umbrel-startup.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.

External storage service logs

– Logs begin at Fri 2023-09-08 11:18:45 UTC, end at Fri 2023-09-08 11:38:32 UTC. –
Sep 08 11:18:49 umbrel systemd[1]: Starting External Storage Mounter…
Sep 08 11:18:49 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Running external storage mount script…
Sep 08 11:18:50 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Found device “WD Blue SA510 2.5 1000GB”
Sep 08 11:18:50 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Blacklisting USB device IDs against UAS driver…
Sep 08 11:18:50 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Rebinding USB drivers…
Sep 08 11:18:50 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Checking USB devices are back…
Sep 08 11:18:50 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Waiting for USB devices…
Sep 08 11:18:51 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Waiting for USB devices…
Sep 08 11:18:52 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Waiting for USB devices…
Sep 08 11:18:53 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Checking if the device is ext4…
Sep 08 11:18:53 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Yes, it is ext4
Sep 08 11:18:53 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Checking filesystem for corruption…
Sep 08 11:18:53 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: e2fsck 1.44.5 (15-Dec-2018)
Sep 08 11:18:53 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: umbrel: clean, 251735/61054976 files, 168615485/244190208 blocks
Sep 08 11:18:53 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Mounting partition…
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: mount: /mnt/data: can’t read superblock on /dev/sda1.
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel external storage mounter[477]: Error mounting partition
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: umbrel-external-storage.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: umbrel-external-storage.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: Failed to start External Storage Mounter.

External storage SD card update service logs

– Logs begin at Fri 2023-09-08 11:18:45 UTC, end at Fri 2023-09-08 11:38:32 UTC. –
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: Dependency failed for External Storage SDcard Updater.
Sep 08 11:18:54 umbrel systemd[1]: umbrel-external-storage-sdcard-update.service: Job umbrel-external-storage-sdcard-update.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.

Karen logs

tail: cannot open ‘logs/karen.log’ for reading: No such file or directory

Docker containers

NAMES STATUS

Umbrel logs

ERROR: The Compose file ‘./docker-compose.yml’ is invalid because:
networks.default.ipam.config.subnet is invalid: should use the CIDR format
services.tor_proxy.ports contains an invalid type, it should be a number, or an object
services.auth.ports contains an invalid type, it should be a number, or an object
services.nginx.ports contains an invalid type, it should be a number, or an object

Tor Proxy logs

ERROR: The Compose file ‘./docker-compose.yml’ is invalid because:
networks.default.ipam.config.subnet is invalid: should use the CIDR format
services.tor_proxy.ports contains an invalid type, it should be a number, or an object
services.auth.ports contains an invalid type, it should be a number, or an object
services.nginx.ports contains an invalid type, it should be a number, or an object

==== Result ====

The debug script did not automatically detect any issues with your Umbrel.

I have no clue what to do now. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[smolgrrr]

Looks like this is the issue →
mount: /mnt/data: can’t read superblock on /dev/sda1.

Have you got much data on your SSD if we need to reformat the drive?

One other thing worth trying is reflashing your SD card.
You can follow these instructions here.

Resolving “Error: System service failed”

As a disclaimer please always make sure you have secured your 24 word seed phrase before making any drastic system changes, primarily if you skip the step to reflash your MicroSD card (where you don’t lose any data) and instead skip to reformatting your storage drive then you would lose all your data (all data is stored on the storage drive and will result in a clean install) This error is the result of several issues usually occurring on Raspberry Pi 4 devices and related to the MicroSD card a…

[MoeSats]

Thank you for your reply, smolgrrr. Sorry for the delay, I’m often away from where my node is at.

Have you got much data on your SSD if we need to reformat the drive?

The SSD contains the entire Blockchain up to a couple of months ago. So yeah, would suck to reformat the drive

One other thing worth trying is reflashing your SD card.

I just tried that. I successfully reflashed the SD card with the latest umbrelOS, but unfortunately the problem persists. I still get this screen:

Any other suggestion? Or is reformating my SSD my last option?

Thank you.

[smolgrrr]

Ah that’s a shame- reformatting may be the only option here.

Before that we can try a few other things- if you could please select ‘shutdown’ on the screen, and then unplug your Pi, you can try switching USB ports for the SSD. I would try another USB3.0 port (blue) on the Pi, and if then USB2.0 (white) if that doesn’t work.

Also, can you please try complete the below steps. Potentially we can back-up the block data so you don’t need to download it via the bitcoin P2P network again.

1. Open a terminal window on your computer. On macOS, you can open the Terminal app that’s installed by default on every Mac. On Windows, you can open Command Prompt or the PowerShell app.
2. Type in the following command* and press the Enter key: ssh -t umbrel@umbrel.local In the command given above, you can replace umbrel.local with the local IP of your Umbrel if you prefer. If you are using PowerShell on Windows 10, you may need to run ssh umbrel@umbrel instead of the command given above.
3. You will then be prompted to enter your password. This is the same password you use to access your Umbrel through a browser. The default password before you have created an account on your Umbrel is moneyprintergobrrr on Raspberry Pi, and umbrel on Umbrel Home. You will not be able to see your password as you type it into the terminal. Once you have typed in your password, press the Enter key.
4. See if you can find the bitcoin blocks directory with the following command cd ~/umbrel/app-data/bitcoin and run ls

[MoeSats]

Months later…

Thanks again, smolgrrr.

I tried several USB ports, but turns out my SSD was broken. Or at least so I thought. I was unable to reformat or even access it from any other PC. So I got a new one, including a new casing and USB connecting cable. Started the entire setup process from scratch. But then I got this:

I mean, at this point I have to assume that my Raspberry Pi 4 is no longer working, right?

[smolgrrr]

Ah sorry to hear that.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the Pi is broken! Unfortunately Pi’s can be really fiddly and everything needs to be right, so try reflashing the SD card, and reformatting the SSD one more time to see if you get a good start-up.

Resolving “Error: System service failed”

As a disclaimer please always make sure you have secured your 24 word seed phrase before making any drastic system changes, primarily if you skip the step to reflash your MicroSD card (where you don’t lose any data) and instead skip to reformatting your storage drive then you would lose all your data (all data is stored on the storage drive and will result in a clean install) This error is the result of several issues usually occurring on Raspberry Pi 4 devices and related to the MicroSD card a…

How to easily reformat an ext4 / Umbrel drive

During the installation of umbrelOS, such as when you plug in your MicroSD card to your Raspberry Pi 4, the connected storage drive is formatted automatically in the ext4 file format If there is ever a catastrophic failure due to something like a power loss/surge, or you simply want to free up the SSD/HDD you’re currently using and are making changes then you may want to reformat the drive to use it again, or for a clean install You can mount the drive in another linux installation to read the…