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E-Series: How to troubleshoot Volume Not On Preferred Path event

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Applies to

  • NetApp E-Series
  • Volume Not On Preferred Path (VNOPP)

Description

  • Volume Not On Preferred Path (VNOPP) is a condition that is observed on the storage in the Recovery Guru and in the Major Event Log
    • Recovery Guru
      Failure Entry N: NON_PREFERRED_PATH-Recovery Failure Type Code: 10
      Preferred owner: Controller in bay B
      Current owner: Controller in bay A
      Affected volume group: <VOLUME GROUP/DISK POOL>
      Volume(s): <VOLUME>
    • Major Event Log (EVENT LOG)
      Event type: 4011
      Event category: Error
      Priority: Critical
      Description: Volume not on preferred path due to AVT/RDAC failover
      Component type: Controller
      Component location: Shelf 0, Bay B
      Logged by: Controller in bay B
  • This condition is reported when a volume, or multiple volumes are owned by their non-preferred controller for a period of time that exceeds the Failover Alert Delay timer (default 5 minutes).
  • VNOPP is commonly caused by, but not limited to, any of the following:
    • Controller reboot (example: PANIC, manual reset, Ancient IO, WDTO).
    • Non-existent connection to a volume's owning controller.
    • Misconfigured host mappings.
    • Break in connection/instability in the SAN between a Host and the owning controller (example: Bad cable, bad SFP, bad HBA port, switch port bounce).
    • Improperly configured SAN Host multipath.
    • Unstable or misbehaving array controller.
  • This article provides a systematic approach to identify what caused a VNOPP, fix the underlying issue (if necessary), and reassign the volume(s) back to their preferred owner.

WARNING

Do not upgrade controller firmware to try to fix volumes not on preferred path issue. Upgrading while the system is not stable can result in unpredictable behavior including outages.

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