COBALT SITE today
The Sun RaQ XTR is the ideal server appliance for service providers delivering or hosting content-rich, interactive Web sites or other complex software applications requiring a sophisticated back-end infrastructure

It's a shame that the XTR has been completely recalled - hard drives keep getting shagged. No mention on the site though!:eek:

I'd really like to know where you heard this load of $!@$ we're running 12 XTR units - 4 of which we've bought in the last 4 weeks and we've had no problems - and heard of no recalls.

moz.

Originally posted by mozd3v
I'd really like to know where you heard this load of $!@$ we're running 12 XTR units - 4 of which we've bought in the last 4 weeks and we've had no problems - and heard of no recalls.

moz.

How about directly from cobalt this is a quote from an email of 14-06-2001:


Unfortunately, since last Friday, we now have a recall on
all
XTR's that are out in the field and we will not be re-manufacturing them
for 6-8 weeks.
Regards,

EMEA
Sun Microsystems Nederland B.V.


So next time do some investigation work before you call it a load of whatever please.

BTW they don't mention it being out of production or being recalled but it isn't available in the online shop anymore.


You may have bought it from a distributor or reseller that had them on stock but they shouldn't have sold them to you.



RaQ XTR will not boot/progress past setup
* Solution: RMA (only); electrical disturbance on the first
production line (faulty/deffective).

RaQ XTR will not recognize extra drives for RAID array
* Solution: perform OS restore XTR with all drives present

RaQ XTR does not work with 4 memory modules:
* Solution: Unknown; temporary fix: limit RAM to placement
in only 2 modules (possible later RMA).

RaQ XTR has re-occuring excessive CPU usage
* Solution: telnet in, run top, kill process manually

RaQ XTR has re-occuring RAID-1 and RAID-5 failures
* Solution: (?) 2.6.17 firmware update (unconfirmed). Any
idea where to obtain this with detail instructions?

To re-use any drives (which aren't faulty), you need to
remove them, and run fdisk on them to earse any partition.
*DO NOT* re-use without doing this, as it will screw up
the RAID-1/5 arrays.

RaQ XTR has serial ports reversed in manual
* Solution: reverse diagram on page 237 of XTR manual

RaQ XTR PCI SCSI card isn't recognized
* Solution: unknown.

RaQ XTR has 250-site imposed limit (undocumented)
* /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/Cobalt/Product_raq.pm,
locate "$Site_Max" and change. Reboot server.


And that's just a few of the many more problems

I'd really like to know where you heard this load of $!@$ we're running 12 XTR units - 4 of which we've bought in the last 4 weeks and we've had no problems - and heard of no recalls.

Wow, someone is out of the loop.

All ours were recalled too. We spent all last week moving 100's of sites of these ^$%#& servers. I also posted this info a month ago. If your servers are humming along, you are a minority.

Aloha,
well if you go here:
http://www.cobalt.com/products/xtr/howtobuy.html
you can see they are unavailable
this has been discussed all over the web with the probs that shadowbreed mentioned

Sorry guys, I must be out of the loop - I don't deal with this stuff usually - but had a tech make some calls to a couple other local HSP's this am.

Cobalt Australia had no specific comment on the issue after I called them - there was mention of a Revision Fault in the RAID modules - but nothing in relation to a major hardware problem.

Strange strange.

I wonder what ground would exist to sue Sun for faulty merchandise, down time which would in turn affect one's clientele. Hum. Suppose our biggest (as in me and the company I work for) msitake was going with some a low-end and basically performance restricted unit.

Life and learn I suppose.

Anyway, I'll read up on this issue further and find out what I can. Thanks for the input above.

moz.

Aloha,
glad you do not know about it
it shows you have more of a life than the rest of us
congrats to that
hehehehehehehee

but you do know about it now that is what counts

Yes, I know now.

I'll be doing some post-sale Sun-Butt kicking if we DO end up with problems. Being eight of the XTR's are in use as Pre-Release production servers, testing Cold Fusion sites, PHP frontends etc. I'll be dissapointed.

In this wonderful world of competition - everyone has to fight to get their products out first - instead of winning market share with a 'stable' and 'well developed' product.

Not mentioning any names... (cough Mikysoft) and now... (cough Sunny).

Oh well - such is life.

moz.

The inside scoop is the new software/hardware mix has a serious memory leak (among the other issues already posted). Ours kept crashing with no real warnings. We also had 933/512 XTR's.

Unlike a RAQ2/3/4, the XTR takes forever to reboot also.

It's not a memory leak, it's a hardware issue with the motherboard. There are also some minor software issues (webmail, RAID) that have contributed to instabilities as well.

A reboot takes mere minutes; power-cycling the machine after a crash/freeze can take up to (RAID1) 10 minutes, and (RAID5) 15+ minutes.

A reboot takes mere minutes; power-cycling the machine after a crash/freeze can take up to (RAID1) 10 minutes, and (RAID5) 15+ minutes.

Ours took 20 - 30 minutes each time. RAID5. We should know, we rebooted on average 2 - 3 times a week.

Webmail was fixed a few months ago. We disabled it.

When we got the recall word, they told us it was a memory leak directly related to the motherboard. I really do not care what the reason is, I am just glad they are going to fix it.

Problem is - issue should NEVER have existed in the first place. The system should have been throughly tested, benched and then released... VERY dissapointing Sun, very dissapointing.

moz.

Its makes it even worse when you have sold the XTR package to a customer and then find out you cant supply that customer - We got absolutly NO notice whatsoever that this had happened but only found out when we placed the order with the Cobalt distro.

This is very sad - and makes me boil :mad:

Just had info back - it looks like the XTR will not be back now until SEPTEMBER! :rolleyes:

Must be bad. I think Ford had a quicker turnaround with the Explorer. :D

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
Must be bad. I think Ford had a quicker turnaround with the Explorer. :D
Aloha
yeah good point
but as I remember they knew about it for a long time adn only did it when forced into it
wonder if RaQ put it out thinking OK maybe we wont get caught or it wont happen ????
ya got to wonder