[Solved] P7P55D-E Pro / Sierra loses Ethernet occasionally, stops TM backups

[bkendig]

This is a strange problem and probably a longshot to find anyone else hitting it, but I could use some ideas if anyone has any.

I have an Asus P7P55D-E Pro mobo (with an 8112L networking controller) that was running 10.9 Mavericks for the past few years, no problems. A week ago I upgraded it to 10.12 Sierra (booting from Clover). The upgrade worked except that it wasn't succeeding at Time Machine backups to a Synology NAS (which it had been using before without problems, and which several other Macs in the house are backing up to). So I deleted this computer's backups from the NAS, uninstalled/reinstalled the RealtekRTL8111 kext (into /Library/Extensions), cleared the kext cache, and removed and re-added the backup locations in the Time Machine preferences panel. It's still having trouble.

What happens is that backups start successfully and run for a while (a few hours - it's got 1.5TB to back up over my home network), but then suddenly I get this in the logs:

UserEventAgent: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to send message because the port couldn't be created.
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Backup failed with error 18: The backup disk could not be found.
UserEventAgent: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to send message because the port couldn't be created.
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Error 1 creating backup disk image
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to create disk image /Volumes/Backups/Kovu.sparsebundle, status: 1
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Backup failed because the network destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Backup failed with error 26: The connection to the server was interrupted.
UserEventAgent: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to send message because the port couldn't be created.
UserEventAgent: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to send message because the port couldn't be created.​

And then until I reboot, every subsequent attempt to back up will fail like this, even though the backup volume is no longer mounted:

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] [SnapshotUtilities volumeRefForPath:] FSPathMakeRef failed and returned OSStatus: -43 for path /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to mount disk image: Error Domain=com.apple.backupd.ErrorDomain Code=21 "(null)" UserInfo={MessageParameters=(
"/Volumes/Backups/Kovu.sparsebundle",
"-6580"
)}
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] [SnapshotUtilities mountPointForVolumeRef] FSGetVolumeInfo returned: -35
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Failed to eject volume (null) (FSVolumeRefNum: -116; status: -35; dissenting pid: -1)
backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.​

The reason I suspect this computer, and not the server, is because I've been ssh'ing into this computer to keep an eye on the backups and it drops my connection occasionally.

Any thoughts? The Realtek 8111 driver should be compatible with an 8112L, right? Or is there a different driver I should use?

 

[MrDadG]

Any thoughts? The Realtek 8111 driver should be compatible with an 8112L, right? Or is there a different driver I should use?

I haven't put macOS on that motherboard, but I have used it under Linux for quite a while. It used to be (it's been fixed for a while now) that Linux would use the 8111 driver by default, and that after some fairly large amount of data had been transfered (a couple Gigs worth), the network would simply stop working. Using the correct 8112 driver fixed this issue.

I know that doesn't address your macOS issue, but hopefully it will point you in the right direction

 

[bkendig]

Thank you; I appreciate the data point!

So far I haven't been able to determine whether this is a networking drive problem, or a problem with AFP support on the Synology NAS. On the Hackintosh side, the network dropout (that kills backups and my ssh sessions) appears to be momentary, but it kills backups until I reboot (because it thinks it can't eject the backup volume that's no longer mounted). And another Hackintosh can back up to the NAS, no problem. But I see various reports of AFP problems with recent Synology firmware...

 

[bkendig]

Followup: I determined that the 8112L chip on this mobo is not actually supported by Mieze's Realtek 8111 driver. (see https://github.com/Mieze/RTL8111_driver_for_OS_X/issues/13)

I switched to a USB Ethernet adapter (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PC0H9IE/?tag=tonymacx86com-20, $20), and now this computer appears to be backing up to the Synology NAS without any of the interruptions that it had previously.

Thank you for pointing me towards the solution, @MrDadG!

 

[mrBitey]

Followup: I determined that the 8112L chip on this mobo is not actually supported by Mieze's Realtek 8111 driver. (see https://github.com/Mieze/RTL8111_driver_for_OS_X/issues/13)

I switched to a USB Ethernet adapter (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PC0H9IE/?tag=tonymacx86com-20, $20), and now this computer appears to be backing up to the Synology NAS without any of the interruptions that it had previously.

Thank you for pointing me towards the solution, @MrDadG!

Hey Bkendig,

Would it be possible for you to provide a brief summary of the steps you took to install OS Sierra on your p7p55de-pro mobo? I recently brought it up from Snow Leopard (10.6.x) to El Capitan and everything seems to be running smooth. Used Unibeast 6, Multibeast 8.2.3, Legacy Boot, and then separately installed VoodooHDA 2.8.8 w/ AC3. Using same BIOS settings from 10.6.

Would be nice if I could bring it up to the latest OS release so I don't have to worry about updating again for a while. And of course better to do it now while the install is still fresh. The first time I tried installing 10.12 using Unibeast 7, it crashed on first re-boot (see img). No such problems with 10.11, though. Any advice you could provide would be appreciated. If pointed in the right direction, I would try again. Thanks!

 

[bkendig]

I simply followed the instructions here, being sure to install for "Legacy" instead of "UEFI": https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ierra-on-any-supported-intel-based-pc.200564/

Set up a USB flash drive with Sierra by using the latest version of UniBeast 7.x. That should give you a recent version of Clover, which you need with the latest version of Sierra. You'll be able to set up the flash drive and see if it boots without changing anything on your El Capitan setup, so that's definitely where to start.

(This all is probably what you've already done, but make sure you're on the latest versions of things and keep that USB flash drive handy so you can retry things as you find suggestions.)

From your screenshot, it looks like the nVidia driver is crashing? I'm not familiar with the nv_disable option you're using (the P7P55D-E Pro that I'm using has an ancient Radeon HD 5770 in it), but I recommend searching for answers around that. I imagine the answer will be more specific to your card than to this particular motherboard.