Mysterious system crashes under load

Troubleshooting
1

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

  • DietPi version |

    G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9

G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=18

G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1

  • Distro version | bookworm 0

  • Kernel version | Linux DietPi 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.47-1+rpt1~bookworm (2025-09-16) aarch64 GNU/Linux

  • Architecture | arm64

  • SBC model | RPi 3 Model B (aarch64)

  • Power supply used | SoulBay 5V 3A Micro USB AC Adapter

  • SD card used | Samsung 32GB EVO+ MicroSD HC I

Additional Information (if applicable)

  • Software title | SABnzbd
  • The software has been working very reliably up until recently.
  • I have not yet tried replicating this issue on a fresh install of DietPi.
  • I have opened a support forum post at SABnzbd, but since this issue doesn’t occur with every download in SABnzbd, I want to try to check off other potential issues.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Boot DietPi, start a download in SABnzbd, DietPi system become unresponsive

Expected behaviour

  • Prior to ~ a week ago, downloads completed just fine, which is what I’ve come to expect.

Actual behaviour

DietPi system becomes unresponsive. This does not happen with every download in SABnzbd. SABnzbd is really the only application that puts much of a load on my system; I wonder if my power supply may be going bad? I haven’t tried a stress test yet to see if that crashes my rpi.

Extra details

  • The only changes to my system prior to this issue arising was a recyclarr install and a manual zstd install.
2

Do you have an external USB drive connected, like an SATA HDD or so?

And to get more info you could enable full logging with dietpi-config

3

Do you have an external USB drive connected, like an SATA HDD or so?

I do. That was one of my other thoughts. It’s not a terribly old drive. I’ll enable full logging and see what I can see. Thank you, @Jappe .

4

how long does it take before the issue happen once a download has been started? If it is just minutes, you can try to catch it live/online

5

I enabled full logging and tailed syslog until the issue reappeared. Two files downloaded without issue, and then I was maybe 15 seconds into a 3rd before the system became unresponsive. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything telling from the tail output:

2025-11-03T07:10:31.204189-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:31,203::DEBUG::[assembler:80] Decoding part of /mnt/media/Downloads/incomplete/Mayor.Of.Kingstown.S03E08.Captain.of.the.Sht.out.of.Luck.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTb-AsRequested/oZxW.mkv

2025-11-03T07:10:31.964626-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:31,961::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'queue', 'start': '0', 'limit': '20', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885587'}

2025-11-03T07:10:31.976952-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:31,975::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'history', 'failed_only': '0', 'start': '0', 'limit': '10', 'archive': '0', 'last_history_update': '35', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885588'}

2025-11-03T07:10:33.069166-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:33,018::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'queue', 'start': '0', 'limit': '20', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885589'}

2025-11-03T07:10:33.070146-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:33,034::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'history', 'failed_only': '0', 'start': '0', 'limit': '10', 'archive': '0', 'last_history_update': '35', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885590'}

2025-11-03T07:10:34.083103-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:34,076::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'queue', 'start': '0', 'limit': '20', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885591'}

2025-11-03T07:10:34.087766-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:34,079::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'history', 'failed_only': '0', 'start': '0', 'limit': '10', 'archive': '0', 'last_history_update': '35', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885592'}

2025-11-03T07:10:34.769401-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:34,768::DEBUG::[bpsmeter:351] Speed: 4.4 MB/s

2025-11-03T07:10:35.192028-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:35,133::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'queue', 'start': '0', 'limit': '20', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': 'REDACTED', '_': '1762173885593'}

2025-11-03T07:10:35.193371-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:35,155::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36] {'mode': 'history', 'failed_only': '0', 'start': '0', 'limit': '10', 'archive': '0', 'last_history_update': '35', 'output': 'json', 'apikey': ‘REDACTED, '_': '1762173885594'}

Nor does syslog contain anything obvious from right before the issue:

2025-11-03T07:10:04.811958-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:04,809::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:04.815343-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:04,814::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:04.854138-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:04,853::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 2867200 to 3276800 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=20, >

2025-11-03T07:10:04.975747-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:04,974::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3686400 to 4096000 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=3, c>

2025-11-03T07:10:05.152792-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:05,151::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3686400 to 4096000 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=29, >

2025-11-03T07:10:05.298471-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:05,297::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3686400 to 4096000 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=26, >

2025-11-03T07:10:05.853288-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:05,850::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:05.861748-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:05,860::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:06.547530-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:06,546::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3276800 to 3686400 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=15, >

2025-11-03T07:10:06.640496-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:06,639::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 2867200 to 3276800 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=23, >

2025-11-03T07:10:06.906645-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:06,903::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:06.911457-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:06,904::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:07.947975-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:07,944::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:07.962126-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:07,960::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:09.005660-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:09,000::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:09.012514-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:09,008::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:09.092504-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:09,091::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3276800 to 3686400 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=20, >

2025-11-03T07:10:09.209141-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:09,208::DEBUG::[bpsmeter:351] Speed: 5.1 MB/s

2025-11-03T07:10:09.523080-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:09,521::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3686400 to 4096000 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=21, >

2025-11-03T07:10:09.828197-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:09,827::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3686400 to 4096000 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=15, >

2025-11-03T07:10:10.047555-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:10,045::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:10.057243-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:10,056::DEBUG::[interface:144] Request GET /api from 192.168.50.75 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.>

2025-11-03T07:10:10.309845-06:00 DietPi SABnzbd[512]: 2025-11-03 07:10:10,308::INFO::[newswrapper:240] Increased buffer from 3276800 to 3686400 for <NewsWrapper: server=news.tweaknews.eu:563, thread=23, >

^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^
6

Can you share the output of the following command please:

dmesg -l warn,err,crit,alert,emerg
7 
dietpi@DietPi:~$ dmesg -l warn,err,crit,alert,emerg

[    1.768151] Core Release: 2.80a

[    1.768826] Setting default values for core params

[    1.769510] Finished setting default values for core params

[    1.970389] Using Buffer DMA mode

[    1.971048] Periodic Transfer Interrupt Enhancement - disabled

[    1.971725] Multiprocessor Interrupt Enhancement - disabled

[    1.972397] OTG VER PARAM: 0, OTG VER FLAG: 0

[    1.973063] Dedicated Tx FIFOs mode

[    1.974890] INFO:: FIQ DMA bounce buffers: virt = ffffffc080aaa000 dma = 0x00000000fa810000 len=9024

[    1.976250] FIQ FSM acceleration enabled for :

               Non-periodic Split Transactions

               Periodic Split Transactions

               High-Speed Isochronous Endpoints

               Interrupt/Control Split Transaction hack enabled

[    1.979548] INFO:: MPHI regs_base at ffffffc080075000

[    1.982310] Init: Port Power? op_state=1

[    1.982947] Init: Power Port (0)

[    2.101588] Indeed it is in host mode hprt0 = 00021501

[    2.244148] mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch, assuming write-enable

[    2.282286] Indeed it is in host mode hprt0 = 00001101

[    6.316509] snd_bcm2835: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.

[    6.634359] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] No Caching mode page found

[    6.634372] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
9

We need to check that when the system fails again. After a reboot the log from the previous boot is available at /var/log/kernel.log.1, maybe we can find something there.

10

You mean run this after the next failure?

dmesg -l warn,err,crit,alert,emerg

11

If you are able to force the issue, you could watch system logs and kernel logs permanently while downloading

12

no, this will only show the errors since the last reboot, but we need the info from the boot before, when it crashed.

13

Well, it’s crashed again when downloading a file, and I haven’t rebooted since. What command should I run after reboot?

@Joulinar , I included info from syslog above when one of the previous crashes occurred, and there wasn’t anything telling to see there (I copied the last number of lines from the tail command I was running when the crash occurred, then also the last couple dozen lines from syslog).

14

How does memory usage behaves while downloading a file? You can use htop for this

15

With the full loggin activated the kernel messages from last boot should be in /var/log/kernel.log.1

16

Memory allocation during a download got up to around 750M/956M. Steady state without an active download sits at about 415M/956M. CPU% for sabnzbd jumped over 100% very briefly a couple times but then ranged generally between mid-30s and 90 or so.

17

Here’re the contents of /var/log after my latest reboot, with full system logging enabled.

total 624
drwxr-xr-t  7 root    root     4096 Nov  5 18:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root    root     4096 Oct 20 07:16 ..
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root    root       39 Nov  5 17:17 README ->../../usr/share/doc/systemd/README.logs
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root        0 Oct 22 12:48 alternatives.log
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root     4096 Nov  4 21:07 apt
-rw-r-----  1 root    adm      1292 Nov  5 18:19 auth.log
-rw-rw----  1 root    utmp        0 Nov  5 17:17 btmp
-rw-r-----  1 root    adm       535 Nov  5 18:17 cron.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root        0 Nov  4 21:07 dpkg.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root        0 Oct 12 12:54 fontconfig.log
-rw-r-----  1 root    adm     33123 Nov  5 17:17 kern.log
-rw-rw-r--  1 root    utmp   296296 Nov  5 18:16 lastlog
drwx------  2 root    root     4096 Jul 31  2022 private
drwxr-xr-x  2 radarr  dietpi   4096 Sep 30  2023 radarr
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root      247 Nov  5 17:17 rpimonitor.log
drwxr-xr-x  2 sabnzbd dietpi   4096 Sep  4  2022 sabnzbd
drwxr-xr-x  2 sonarr  dietpi   4096 Nov  5 18:24 sonarr
-rw-r-----  1 root    adm    547753 Nov  5 18:25 syslog
-rw-r-----  1 root    adm      1786 Nov  5 18:18 user.log
-rw-rw-r--  1 root    utmp     2000 Nov  5 18:16 wtmp
18

Ok probably of the crash the logs get not rotated, so there is no log from last boot.
Maybe you can mount the drive on another machine before you boot again after a crash, to export the log files.