Resolving Server Startup Issues Due to Missing or Corrupted Disk-Store Files in GemFire

Products

• VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Issue/Introduction

The inability to restart a server, such as <serverA>, alongside other servers (e.g., <serverB>, <serverC>) is often linked to missing or corrupted disk-store files. The error message on <serverA>:

 

java.lang.IllegalStateException: The following required files could not be found: *.crf files with these ids:

This error typically indicates that some of the critical disk-store files needed for GemFire to start up are missing, corrupted, or inaccessible.

Cause

This issue commonly occurs due to external factors like Power loss, network connectivity that interfere with disk-store file integrity. GemFire requires these files to restore regions and maintain redundancy during startup. If the files are missing or corrupted, GemFire cannot correctly load them, resulting in startup failure.

Resolution

 

• Verify Disk-Store File Existence and Accessibility:

  • Ensure that the required disk-store files are present in the expected locations on <serverA>. These files should be readable and writable by the GemFire process.
  • If permissions have been altered, correct them so the server can access the files.

• Restoring from Other Cluster Members:

  • If other servers in the cluster are healthy and still contain the disk-store files, you may be able to restore the missing data from those servers. GemFire automatically rebalances data if redundancy is maintained.

• Recreating the Disk-Store:

  • If the disk-store files are deleted or corrupted and no backup exists, you will need to delete the entire disk-store on <serverA>.
  • After deleting the disk-store, restart the server, and GemFire will attempt to re-populate the cache. Data will be retrieved either from other members of the cluster (if they are available) or manually re-imported into the regions.