ERROR: CANNOT OBTAIN AN EXCLUSIVE LOCK ON VOLUME: CLOSE OTHER APPS

Problem

vic fails to run and reports that it does not have an exclusive lock to a storage volume, even though there is no Creative Finishing application actually accessing the volume in question.

In the example below, vic reports that Smoke is accessing the framestore on the system 'tiger':
# /usr/discreet/io/bin/vic -v stonefs7
Output log to: '/usr/discreet/log/vic.log'.
Opening volume stonefs for integrity check ...
Locking volume ...
Cannot obtain an exclusive lock on volume: close other apps.
The following process(es) must be stopped in order to run a full volume integrity check:

2 active connections on volume stonefs:
      Application                      PID      Host                             #Conn
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      smoke_LINUX_2.6           3585 tiger (172.16.100.146)             1
      vic                                  3615 tiger (172.16.100.146)             1

Checking active volume users ... [ OK ]
Failed to lock volume stonefs.


This could be due to another process (perhaps a dead process from a previous crash) that still appears in the .ref.rec or .ref.log file (depending on your software version) as running. The problem can also occur when the workstation IP address changes.

Solution

What are .ref and .ref.rec (or .ref.log) files?

The /usr/discreet/clip/<stonefs_partition>/.ref, /usr/discreet/clip/<stonefs_partition>/.ref.rec  and/usr/discreet/clip/<stonefs_partition>/.ref.log  files are used to monitor programs and processes that access the framestore.

A .ref file contains a numerical value relating to the number of processes accessing the framestore. This file is maintained by the Discreet Multi-purpose Daemon ( DL_mpd ).

A .ref.rec file (or .ref.log file, for software versions prior to 2010 Extension 1) is a text file containing details of the programs that have accessed stonefs via local and remote connections. This file is maintained by DL_mpd.

The illustration below shows the contents of a typical .ref.rec or .ref.log file and explains the relevance of each of its columns:

Removing Invalid Locks from .ref and .ref.rec (or .ref.log) Files

Perform the following tasks to remove invalid locks:

Make sure that application is not running locally.

Note: You can optionally stop Stone + Wire to make sure no other application is able to access the storage.

Open a terminal and log in as root.

Confirm that there are no remote connections to the local framestore (with the IP reported by the error).

Copy the .ref and .ref.rec (or .ref.log) file to /var/tmp as a backup:

cp –p /usr/discreet/clip/stonefs7/.ref* /var/tmp/

Open the .ref file in a text editor, and change the value inside the file to 0 (zero).
Open the .ref.rec (or .ref.log) file in a text editor, and delete all its contents.
Run the Volume Integrity Check utility (vic):

/usr/discreet/io/bin/vic –v stonefs7

Launch the application.