fdisk hangs after "Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table" message.

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Issue

  • When trying to write the partition table on the new disk fdisk went into "D" state, as shown below:
 # fdisk /dev/sdh
 Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
 Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x2252db2b.
 Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
 After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

 Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

 WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
         switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to
         sectors (command 'u').

 Command (m for help): w
 The partition table has been altered!

 Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.    <======== Hung 

Following traces are seen in dmesg:

INFO: task fdisk:3985 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
"echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
fdisk         D 0000000000000009     0  3985   3959 0x00000080
 ffff88083431bb08 0000000000000086 ffff88083431bbd8 ffffffff81055b84
 ffff8804335ec138 ffff8804335ec048 ffff880432342f20 ffff880432342f20
 ffff8805da922638 ffff88083431bfd8 000000000000fb88 ffff8805da922638
Call Trace:
 [<ffffffff81055b84>] ? find_busiest_group+0x244/0x9f0
 [<ffffffff8109b669>] ? ktime_get_ts+0xa9/0xe0
 [<ffffffff8110ffe0>] ? sync_page+0x0/0x50
 [<ffffffff814ea7a3>] io_schedule+0x73/0xc0
 [<ffffffff8111001d>] sync_page+0x3d/0x50
 [<ffffffff814eb15f>] __wait_on_bit+0x5f/0x90
 [<ffffffff81110253>] wait_on_page_bit+0x73/0x80
 [<ffffffff81090c20>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x50
 [<ffffffff81126665>] ? pagevec_lookup_tag+0x25/0x40
 [<ffffffff811106cb>] wait_on_page_writeback_range+0xfb/0x190
 [<ffffffff811257e4>] ? generic_writepages+0x24/0x30
 [<ffffffff81125811>] ? do_writepages+0x21/0x40
 [<ffffffff8111081b>] ? __filemap_fdatawrite_range+0x5b/0x60
 [<ffffffff8111078f>] filemap_fdatawait+0x2f/0x40
 [<ffffffff81110db4>] filemap_write_and_wait+0x44/0x60
 [<ffffffff811af8d4>] __sync_blockdev+0x24/0x50
 [<ffffffff811af913>] sync_blockdev+0x13/0x20
 [<ffffffff811b0308>] fsync_bdev+0x58/0x70
 [<ffffffff81257abe>] invalidate_partition+0x2e/0x60
 [<ffffffff811e798f>] rescan_partitions+0x5f/0x410
 [<ffffffff81090f9c>] ? remove_wait_queue+0x3c/0x50
 [<ffffffff812566ac>] blkdev_ioctl+0x5bc/0x6e0
 [<ffffffff81052223>] ? __wake_up+0x53/0x70
 [<ffffffff811ae83c>] block_ioctl+0x3c/0x40
 [<ffffffff811892d2>] vfs_ioctl+0x22/0xa0
 [<ffffffff81310f2e>] ? tty_ldisc_deref+0xe/0x10
 [<ffffffff81309ea3>] ? tty_write+0x233/0x2a0
 [<ffffffff81189474>] do_vfs_ioctl+0x84/0x580
 [<ffffffff81176842>] ? vfs_write+0x132/0x1a0
 [<ffffffff811899f1>] sys_ioctl+0x81/0xa0
 [<ffffffff810d3c95>] ? __audit_syscall_exit+0x265/0x290
 [<ffffffff8100b072>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

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