I've got a disk I/O error right smack bang on ~/.cache/tracker/meta.db on my N9. It's messing up my sms's and few other things.

Would a flash guarantee that the file would be wiped or would it cough up another disk i/o error at the same spot? Or could I somehow do a disk check

The backup program won't work either as it crashes when it reads this file.

Thanks

meta.db

That is bad.
But are you sure it is a HW i/o error? What does dmesg and/or syslog tell?
I would expect the flash disk controller to handle 'bad sectors'.

Did you try a cp or a dd? To move that file to other location as it might be that this meta.db (locked by aegis?/metadata user, ) cannot be moved by OS to other disk location (but even that I would expect to be handled by the controller).
So I am guessing only, please elaborate and try to give some more information.

Another approach: as it is a sqlite DB, you could try to dump it and load it to a new file. Move that file later to correct location and give rights...

After running develsh and issuing - cp /home/user/.cache/tracker/meta.db ~/

dmesg says this... (nothing in syslog)

340.996337] Aegis: cannot measure file orcexec.iMHnzK (process: ngfd)
[ 340.996582] Aegis: cannot measure file orcexec.CuBYWk (process: ngfd)
[ 340.996704] Aegis: cannot measure file orcexec.a0QbkV (process: ngfd)
[ 474.057586] mmcblk0: error -110 transferring data, sector 122225720, nr 8, card status 0x200b00
[ 474.057617] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 122225720

same error for dd...+

I am not sure of it is a h/w issue but it sounds like it.

If you don't care about your contacts and SMS you could delete that file (or do a "tracker hard reset", search this forum for it). Do note that you WILL lose contacts, sms, messages, etc.

Most probably a hardware failure but also most probably nothing to worry about since flash blocks die frequently.

yes most likely, I just really don't want my phone to be bricked if the flash stops at the bad block...

Guess I'll still have lots to learn about linux ...
did a
lsof | grep orcexec
and it came out with a file in /var/tmp/
but searching that directory did not reveal anything!?

just guessing
Did you already do a reboot?
as I assume this to be a temporary file on rootfs.(mmcblk0p2)

I guess further that it is not your meta.db directly which is affected but the temporary file only? So a reboot should solve/heal?

If it is your meta.db file itself:
did you try to dump or backup with sqlite?
Like:
sqlite3 /home/user/.cache/tracker/meta.db
.help
.backup /home/user/meta.db.bkp
--or
.output /home/user/MyDocs/meta.db.dmp
.dump

Maybe this is possible?
But what to afterwards? At least you would have a backup...

I don't think that will happen. Flasher should (TM) start doing crazy things only when you have "too many bad blocks", and if you do, your device will most probably die soon either way.

I'll try this first. This will keep my calendar entries won't it as they're stored in calendar.db ?

If I remember correctly yes, since they're stored in "mkcal".

So this worked. It zapped the bad block meta.db file and I re-entered my contacts again. Calendar and Notes untouched :-)

Alas the backup program still stops. Any ideas (without going too far off topic) as to how I could see where the program is stopping?

update: I flashed and all working okay now :-)