Dell Unity: XT systems could experience an unexpected SP reboot on UnityOS 5.0.x

Summary: Storage Processors (SPs) may panic due to a memory leak.

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Symptoms

Three conditions must be met for the system to be considered impacted:

  1. The system must be a Dell Unity 380/480/680/880.
  2. The system must have one or more, or a combination of both, 25G I/O modules ClearskyX or Lightblade.
  3. The system's memory utilization must be 90% or above.

Unity XT systems may experience an unexpected SP reboot due to a memory leak in the driver for the 25 Gb Ethernet I/O module.

Cause

Memory leak in the QED driver on X80's platforms. This is a driver for fibre channel frontend ports on the array. It is for the new 25 GbE I/O Optical Fibre Channel modules.

The uptime has ranged from 90 to 150 days on most of these SPs before they experienced the unexpected reboot.

Resolution

To determine if the system is impacted, check for those above two conditions first, by logging in through SSH and running the below commands:

  1. # svc_diag -s cru | egrep "sp|slic|iom"
     
    Displaying CRU information:
          spa:          OK
            iom:        OK WARNADO_IOM_BOM_B_REV_C
            slic0:      OK CLEARSKY_X
            slic1:      OK VORTEXQ_X
          spb:          OK
            iom:        OK WARNADO_IOM_BOM_B_REV_C
            slic0:      OK CLEARSKY_X
            slic1:      OK VORTEXQ_X

  2. # uemcli -sslPolicy accept -noHeader /metrics/value/rt -path sp.*.memory.summary.utilization show -interval 5
     
    Timestamp           |SP        |summary
                    |          |System
                    |          |Memory
                    |          |Utilization
                    |          |%
--------------------+----------+-----------
2020-06-29 19:21:45 |spa       |      94.68
                    |spb       |      61.91
2020-06-29 19:21:50 |spa       |      94.63
                    |spb       |      61.91
2020-06-29 19:21:55 |spa       |      94.74
                    |spb       |      61.90
2020-06-29 19:22:00 |spa       |      94.68
                    |spb       |      61.91

     


Fix:
This issue has been fixed in version 5.0.3.0.5.014. 
It is highly recommended to upgrade the UnityOS to 5.0.3 or later. Instructions on how to upgrade the UnityOS can be found at Dell Unity: How to upgrade the UnityOS (User Correctable)


Workaround:
Since this is a memory leak, reboot both storage processors periodically.
Instructions for how to reboot a Storage Processor can be found in Dell Unity: How to Reboot a Storage Processor (User Correctable)

Additional Information

For the release notes on 5.0.3, see Dell EMC Unity Family 5.0.3.0.5.014 Release Notes

Affected Products

Dell EMC Unity XT 480

Products

Dell EMC Unity XT 380, Dell EMC Unity XT 380F, Dell EMC Unity XT 480, Dell EMC Unity XT 480F, Dell EMC Unity XT 680, Dell EMC Unity XT 680F, Dell EMC Unity XT 880, Dell EMC Unity XT 880F
Article Properties
Article Number: 000082028
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 23 Oct 2025
Version:  5
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