Have you seen this error message?

[warlord at MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)]

Laura,

It's probably a hardware bug, most likely a single-bit error in your
RAM.   You could probably just go spend $100 for some new RAM and it
might fix the problem.  Another thing to try before you go off spending
money:  Open up the box and vacuum out all the dust and dirt inside!
After that, run memtest86..  That SHOULD show you any kind of memory
errors.  If memtest throws errors then definitely just get some new
RAM.

My $0.02

-derek

Quoting Laura Conrad <lconrad at laymusic.org>:

>
> I have a script that runs automatically every night on my desktop
> computer which contains lines of the form:
>
> tar cvjf /tmp/backup/bostonre/backup.tbz 
> --files-from=/tmp/backup/bostonre/list.txt
>
> Over the last week or two, on large directories, this line has been
> giving me error messages like:
>
>    log> bzip2: Caught a SIGSEGV or SIGBUS whilst compressing.
>
>    log>    Possible causes are (most likely first):
>    log>    (1) This computer has unreliable memory or cache hardware
>    log>        (a surprisingly common problem; try a different machine.)
>    log>    (2) A bug in the compiler used to create this executable
>    log>        (unlikely, if you didn't compile bzip2 yourself.)
>    log>    (3) A real bug in bzip2 -- I hope this should never be the case.
>    log>    The user's manual, Section 4.3, has more info on (1) and (2).
>
>    log>    If you suspect this is a bug in bzip2, or are unsure about (1)
>    log>    or (2), feel free to report it to me at: jseward at bzip.org.
>    log>    Section 4.3 of the user's manual describes the info a useful
>    log>    bug report should have.  If the manual is available on your
>    log>    system, please try and read it before mailing me.  If you don't
>    log>    have the manual or can't be bothered to read it, mail me anyway.
>
>    log> 	Input file = (stdin), output file = (stdout)
>
> The manual has more details about how to recompile bzip2 to see if
> it's something like a compiler optomizer bug.  I didn't do that, but I
> did try running the same command with an Ubuntu Breezy Live disk, and
> had the same problem, which suggests it isn't Debian Unstable screwing
> me up.
>
> I also did some experiments to see if it was only one of the two disks in
> the system that had the error, and this doesn't seem to be the case --
> in the original script it happens mostly on the older and smaller
> /home drive, but that's because that's most of what I'm backing up.
> When I copied the largest directory from the smaller, older, drive to
> the larger, newer one and backed it up from there, it got the same
> problem.
>
> I was about to go buy a new desktop system (the prices have come down
> a lot since the last time I looked at them and decided I couldn't
> afford it), but then last night for the first time in at least a week,
> the backup script ran without errors.
>
> Does anyone have a useful theory about what's going on?  Would you
> dump the computer this week, or wait for some more hardware price
> dropping?  This system is about 5 years old, and I don't think
> spending much money on improving its hardware really makes sense.  But
> if it's only the backup program that has a problem, and there's a
> workaround for that (rsync doesn't seem to have any problem copying
> the affected directories between the two disks), then maybe I don't
> have to spend the money for a new system this month.  Is bzip2 really
> that much more sensitive to flaky hardware than other programs?  And
> how fast is the hardware likely to get even flakier?
>
> --
> Laura (mailto:lconrad at laymusic.org , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
> (617) 661-8097	fax: (501) 641-5011
> 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at blu.org
> http://olduvai.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>



-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available