EXT3-fs error in htree_dirblock_to_tree

[David Carter]

Hello all,

Does anyone know if the following is likely to be a software problem or a 
hardware fault?

   Oct 22 14:01:43 cyrus-26 kernel:
    EXT3-fs error (device md0): htree_dirblock_to_tree:
    bad entry in directory #360809233: rec_len is
    smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0, name_len=0

A quick Google didn't tell me much, although a couple of people seem to 
have seen similar problems after hardware problems, and one person seemed 
to be able to trigger it using an "insane file system test":

   http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org/msg02515.html

The filesystem in question is a Cyrus mailstore: lots of write (and fsync) 
activity with small files. It was created with:

   mkfs.ext3 -T news -m 1 -O dir_index -j -J size=256 /dev/md0

and is currently mounted data=ordered. Platform is SLES10.

We haven't seen one of these before, but we are in the process of moving 
from reiser (which never did anything like this) to ext3/htree, so it 
would be useful to known if it is a known problem. Thanks.

-- 
David Carter                             Email: David.Carter at ucs.cam.ac.uk
University Computing Service,            Phone: (01223) 334502
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street,       Fax:   (01223) 334679
Cambridge UK. CB2 3QH.