ASRock E3C224D2I IP KVM Stopped Working?

[matt_garman]

Anyone else out there have on of the ASRock Haswell Xeon motherboards? I have the E3C224D2I. I recently went to use the IP KVM (Remote Control -> Console Redirection -> Java Console), and found it's not working. The JViewer application launches, but shows me only a black screen. The window's title bar says "0 fps", which suggests to me it's not getting any signal.

Likewise, on the Dashboard page of the web-based IPMI/BMC, the console image is black, and says, "Not able to connect to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx".

It's been a few weeks since I last used it, but it was working perfectly fine. Frustrating!

 

[StephD]

I had the same problem yesterday. Look for some zombie Java process keeping your kvm session open and kill it. I personnally had to reboot my workstation (from which I was running jviewer).

 

[matt_garman]

I had the same problem yesterday. Look for some zombie Java process keeping your kvm session open and kill it. I personnally had to reboot my workstation (from which I was running jviewer).

Unfortunately, that doesn't do it for me. I rebooted my workstation just to be sure, but the problem remains.

Interesting thing is I can go to Configuration -> Services, where I see "kvm" as Active. Maximum Sessions=2, Active sessions=0 (as I would expect).

But it also shows that the kvm session is running on ports 7578/7582 (nonsecure/secure). So if I try to telnet to either IP and port, I get "Connection refused" right away. Same goes for all the virtual media ports. But I can telnet to other ports (web, ssh, telnet). I tried setting the kvm service to Inactive then setting back to Active; that didn't help.

 

[StephD]

This is weird indeed. I think I would just power off the server and pull the plug for 10 seconds or so. Maybe you should get in touch with ASRock support and see what they think. Also, you could try to upgrade to the latest firmware.

 

[Patrick]

Can you use IPMItool in Linux?

 

[StephD]

Can you use IPMItool in Linux?

He most probably can. I could even when JViewer gave me the black box. What would you them propose ? Are you aware of some command that would somenhow reset IPMI ? I'd like that. I personally had mixed results with IPMItool SOL activate.

 

[matt_garman]

Can you use IPMItool in Linux?

I was able to "connect" using ipmitool... that is, it didn't timeout or say connection refused or anything like that. But I wasn't able to do anything after it made the connection. That's not entirely surprising, as I haven't explicitly set my Linux environment to output to serial, which in my experience is necessary to use ipmi sol in any meaningful way. (I have some experience using ipmitool sol with Dell servers where management was too cheap to spring for the "Enterprise" DRAC. I'm not a fan of this, as it's always been flaky for me. Dunno if that's a limitation of the protocol, or Dell's implementation.)

In short, I consider the ipmitool result ambiguous at this point... I could perhaps do an ipmitool sol connection, then reboot the server, to see if I can view the POST. But again, my experience with Dell servers suggests that requires explicit configuration as well, and I never did that on this ASRock board, because I assumed the nice graphical KVM would work.

Curiously, I can telnet or ssh into the BMC, and get a BusyBox prompt. I don't have any documentation for this, so I don't know what I can do here. From the looks of it, I can't do anything interesting. Maybe I'll have to see if I can find any documentation for "Megarac SP", which is what this whole BMC/IPMI system appears to be.

FWIW, I also upgraded the BMC from 0.11.0 to 0.12.0, that didn't help. I also powered down and unplugged the machine for several minutes, also no help. Still TODO: upgrade the BIOS.

<rant>My big project this weekend was to move the server to a semi hard-to-reach area of my closet, under the assumption that IP KVM would work, and hooking up a monitor and keyboard would be an extremely rare event. Of course, now I find myself crawling into the cabinet hooking up a monitor and keyboard more than ever. Grrr!</rant>

 

[sgvnut]

Anyone else out there have on of the ASRock Haswell Xeon motherboards? I have the E3C224D2I. I recently went to use the IP KVM (Remote Control -> Console Redirection -> Java Console), and found it's not working. The JViewer application launches, but shows me only a black screen. The window's title bar says "0 fps", which suggests to me it's not getting any signal.

Likewise, on the Dashboard page of the web-based IPMI/BMC, the console image is black, and says, "Not able to connect to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx".

It's been a few weeks since I last used it, but it was working perfectly fine. Frustrating!

I had the same problem except with the Asrock E3C226D2I board. Do you happen to have AVG anti-virus program installed? Or some other antivirus software? Disabling "LinkScanner Surf-Sheild" under Web Browsing Protection on AVG fixed half the problem for me. It allowed the console image on the dashboard page to connect. Jviewer also was able to connect after but i'm still having problems with jviewer showing just a black screen. I can send commands through jviewer but screen stays black and shows 0fps.

 

[matt_garman]

I had the same problem except with the Asrock E3C226D2I board. Do you happen to have AVG anti-virus program installed? Or some other antivirus software? Disabling "LinkScanner Surf-Sheild" under Web Browsing Protection on AVG fixed half the problem for me. It allowed the console image on the dashboard page to connect. Jviewer also was able to connect after but i'm still having problems with jviewer showing just a black screen. I can send commands through jviewer but screen stays black and shows 0fps.

I kept meaning to follow-up with this thread, thanks for the reminder.

Yes, I do have AVG Anti-virus, and indeed, discovered that I need to disable both "LinkScanner Surf-Shield" and "Online Shield" for JViewer to work.

The other part of the "solution" depends on your Java version. The latest version (as of today) is Version 7 Update 51. This has more security features, and by default, doesn't want JViewer to run. So you have to go into the Java Control Panel, and either (1) lower your security level to Medium, or (2) add your IMPI IP address to the Exception Site List.

After doing all these things, my experience was similar to yours: I could tell I was sending commands to the server console via JViewer, but the screen was still blank and saying 0fps. But, I could see the console image updating in response to my commands via the snapshot image on the IMPI Dashboard.

I just kind of sat there thinking, and suddenly it started working! I know that's non-specific, but maybe just sit there and wait 5--10 minutes to see if you get any response.

It's an extremely annoying problem. The IMPI functionality looks to be provided by AMI (the BIOS vendor). If you search the web for "Megarac SP Java", you'll find reports of similar problems with other brands of motherboards. I.e., it appears to me the problem isn't just with ASRock. Hopefully AMI cleans up their program.

AVG likewise needs to fix their software IMO.

 

[Christophe]

Hi,

I had the same problem. The fact is that I had added a graphics board on the motherboard. Was removed allowed me to avoid the black screen and to redo to work the remote display.

I hope it will help you