2960 IOS 12.2(55)SE heap fragmentation

pasztor.richard · ‎09-26-2010

Hi,

I just upgraded the IOS in my 2960's to 12.2(55)SE due to the new SVI static route feature. However, I noticed a serious issue on some of my 2960's:

-the boot failed on one of them, and stopped at the "boot:" prompt. I had to re-issue the boot command via console to start the boot process again, and at this time the boot was succesful.

- even in case of succesful boot, I can see a remark: shadowing for flash filesystem is disabled due to heap fragmentation.

After the boot, there is plenty of free RAM, and big continuous free RAM area. We use only like 2-3 VLANs, SSH, SNMP alerting, PVRSTP, but actually very simple switch config files. Is this a new bug in this release, as the open caveats section has no remark on this?

Thanks

vragotha · ‎09-26-2010

Richard,

Can you issue a 'reload' and see if the switch gets stuck in 'switch:' ? If it does, check the boot log for any post failures.(Please post log here)

Have you tried running an IOS in 12.2(50), (52) or (53) and are seeing the same issue?

pasztor.richard · ‎09-26-2010

I upgraded from 12.2(50)SE, with that I had no such issues.I am planning to reboot some, but only during non-office hours.

Peter Paluch · ‎09-26-2010

Richard,

I agree with Vijay's suggestions.

Regarding the "heap fragmentation" message during the boot, I have actually seen this message on various 2960 series Catalysts running diverse IOS versions (but all fairly recent). While I do not know what that message actually means, I have a feeling that this is not currently related to your problem with booting. I have never ecountered any problems with my 2960 although the message about heap fragmentation does appear on those.

Best regards,

Peter

vragotha · ‎09-26-2010

The ' shadow buffering disabled due to heap fragmentation' is usually seen on 2960s during bootup. I think this was ~ 12.2(50)SE onwards.It's not really a bug and is related to the boot process