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-rw-r--r--docs/MESHBAY_DESIGN.md50
-rw-r--r--docs/USERGUIDE.md19
-rw-r--r--docs/generate_http_api.py3
3 files changed, 71 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/docs/MESHBAY_DESIGN.md b/docs/MESHBAY_DESIGN.md
index 0703993..1f6c96d 100644
--- a/docs/MESHBAY_DESIGN.md
+++ b/docs/MESHBAY_DESIGN.md
@@ -1783,6 +1783,53 @@ root is therefore not watched, not swept by reconcile, and not hashed by any wal
there; the sweep indexes only what the index lacks. The request returns once
the walk is queued, and the progress band shows it.
+**A disk that stops answering costs a file, then a root, never the scan.** A read
+on a failing drive, a share that dropped or a file a sync client has not fetched
+does not fail: it does not return. The hash ran on the indexer's one thread with
+nothing to bound it, so one such file stopped its group's scan where it stood:
+the roots behind it unread, the enrichment that follows a scan never started, a
+pause unable to take effect since it is looked at between two files, and nothing
+in the log naming the file, because a file is named there only when it fails.
+
+- **What is timed is silence, not work.** Every directory entry listed and every
+ megabyte read counts as an answer (`_beat`). A listing of a million entries and
+ a file on a slow link take as long as they take; neither goes sixty seconds
+ (`STALL_SECS`) without one. A call waiting its turn behind another is not
+ timed for the wait.
+- **The thread is left behind, because nothing can interrupt it.** It stays in
+ the kernel for as long as the kernel keeps it, and a new one takes the calls
+ that were waiting (`_DiskThread.abandon`). They are daemon threads: the
+ interpreter joins a pool's threads on its way out, and a node with one read
+ that never returned could not stop.
+- **A root's walk asks the disk nothing from the event loop.** Each file's stat
+ is taken with the listing, on the indexer's thread, and handed down to the
+ hash. Asked again on the loop before each hash, as it was, it is the loop
+ that waits on a silent disk, and with it every connection of the node. The
+ one file a watcher event names is still asked for there.
+- **The file is listed as unread and not asked for again until it changes.**
+ Reconcile meets it at every pass and would wait a minute on it each time. A
+ file the system refuses outright (a permission, a lock) is listed with what the
+ system said and is asked again, since asking costs nothing. A restart, or the
+ root going away and coming back, forgets the list.
+- **Three in a row, with none read in between, and the root is paused.** A minute
+ a file is weeks on a music library, with a thread left behind each time. The
+ root is paused by the node as the operator would pause it (above): the rest of
+ the walk comes from the hash cache, the watcher and reconcile leave it alone,
+ what is indexed stays served, the next root is walked, and Resume starts it
+ again and gets past the files already known to give no answer. A listing that
+ stops answering pauses its root at once, having no file to give up on; a rescan
+ that gets no listing puts back the entries it had dropped.
+- **This pause is not persisted.** The roster holds the operator's pauses. A
+ restart tries the root again, which is what brings back one whose drive or
+ share has returned, at the cost of three minutes when it has not.
+- **The operator is told, on their own machine only.** Ten seconds of silence is
+ logged and shown in the progress band with the file; the group's shared
+ directories list the files given up on and why, and where a root went silent.
+ These are paths, so they are on the loopback API (`index-status`) and in
+ nothing a member receives: a member sees the root paused.
+- **One directory that cannot be listed costs that directory.** The walk used to
+ skip a refusal in silence and to end the whole root's scan on any other error.
+
### 6.4 Uploads
Five protections, and they are the substance:
@@ -4461,6 +4508,9 @@ process runs it — `systemctl --user` on Linux, Task Scheduler on Windows.
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
+| **A disk that stops answering still stalls what is not the scan** | The indexer's own reads are bounded (§6.3). Serving a chunk, the availability check and the directory deletions go through the roots' I/O thread, which has no such limit, and the tag and photo readers leave a thread in the shared pool at each timeout |
+| **A file that gave no answer is asked again at every start** | The list of unread files is memory. With three or more such files in a row the root is paused again three minutes into each start, until the operator resumes it or moves them |
+| **Paths longer than 260 characters are not indexed on Windows** | With the system's default setting the walk cannot list them; it now says so once per directory instead of nothing. The reads already use the long form (`paths.long_path`), the walk does not |
| **The desktop cast relay drops whole segments** | `cast-relay.js` drops a fragment once 8 MB wait for a receiver, and a fragment is a segment, 5 to 10 MB at a film's bitrate: the picture freezes for its length. Its backlog is bounded in fragments only. The Android relay spools a receiver's lead to disk and bounds its backlog in bytes (§11.4); the desktop has neither |
| **The desktop cast relay takes the first chunk for the whole header** | The node's first chunk can be the ftyp alone, the moov in the next; the receiver then gives up. Fixed in the Android relay (§11.4), not in `cast-relay.js` |
| **A cast restart may pull far ahead** | Seen once on an emulator with a synthetic film: after the restart's reinit the node reported `duration=None`, and the page pulled most of the film at network speed. Not reproduced on a real film; the suspicion is a read-ahead budget computed without a duration |
diff --git a/docs/USERGUIDE.md b/docs/USERGUIDE.md
index 9d1749f..bab2074 100644
--- a/docs/USERGUIDE.md
+++ b/docs/USERGUIDE.md
@@ -702,6 +702,19 @@ Nothing else in that directory is indexed until you click **Resume indexing**,
not even a file a member uploads into it, and the pause survives a restart.
Resuming picks up where it stopped: files already indexed are not read again.
+**A disk that stops answering.** A failing drive, a network share that dropped
+or a file a sync client has not downloaded can leave a read waiting for ever.
+The node waits sixty seconds for an answer, then leaves that file and goes on.
+After three such files in a row it takes the disk to be the problem and pauses
+that directory by itself; the other directories go on being indexed, and what
+was already indexed stays visible. On the node's own machine, the indexing band
+names the file once the disk has been silent for ten seconds, and Group →
+Settings shows **disk not answering** on the directory, where it stopped, and
+the list **Files that could not be read** with the reason for each. Check the
+disk, or move those files out, then click **Resume indexing**: the node gets
+past the files it already knows give no answer, and tries them again when they
+change or when it restarts.
+
One thing that surprises people: **two identical files in one group are one
entry**, because a file is identified by its content. A scan that reports ten
files and indexes nine has not lost anything.
@@ -1037,6 +1050,12 @@ Choose a download folder in Settings → Downloads, which switches the browser t
writing straight to disk, and retry. The desktop application does not have this
class of problem.
+**Indexing stops on one directory, or some of its files never appear.**
+Group → Settings, on the node's own machine: a directory marked **disk not
+answering** was paused by the node, and **Files that could not be read** lists
+what it gave up on and why. See Indexing in section 6. The node's log names
+the same files (`No answer from the disk`, `Cannot index`).
+
**Nothing appears in Videos, Music or Photos.**
No folders have been chosen for that application yet. Group → Settings. The tab
says so rather than just looking empty, but it is easy to miss.
diff --git a/docs/generate_http_api.py b/docs/generate_http_api.py
index d064519..cd99332 100644
--- a/docs/generate_http_api.py
+++ b/docs/generate_http_api.py
@@ -160,5 +160,6 @@ def render() -> str:
if __name__ == "__main__":
- OUT.write_text(render(), encoding="utf-8")
+ # Not `write_text`: on Windows it turns every line ending into CRLF.
+ OUT.write_bytes(render().encode("utf-8"))
print(f"wrote {OUT}", file=sys.stderr)