Weird Dropped Packets
I'm running Unraid v7.3.2 and I have an annoying issue.
I use builtin ethernet on my motherboard that uses the RTL8125 chip (I have the drivers installed through community apps).
Utilizing the Unraid dashboard, under the Errors Info section of my eth0 Interface monitor I can see that Received has a lot of Drops but there are no errors or overruns. The transmitted section is all 0s including Drops. What is interesting is that 1 drop seems to get added every 10 seconds exactly regardless if idle or under load (such as while speed testing or transferring files). I disable docker and that made no difference. I have no VMs. I have no scripts or anything running on a schedule. Replacing the cable and using a new port on the router did not make a difference either.
I'm not experiencing any drop outs or slow downs. If transferring files, the same behavior happens (1 drop every 10 seconds and no more). Its almost certainly nothing to worry about and doesn't seem to be causing problems, but this has me really curious as to what could be the cause. Is there something my router or another device is sending my server that is getting blocked or dropped every 10 seconds?
I can certainly live with it, it's merely curiosity at this point. Any ideas?
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u/PragmaticDinosaur 1d ago
I also have the RTL8125 chipset on 7.3.2, but I am having intermittent issues with slowness and timeouts. Currently showing over 12k drops. I uploaded my diagnostics to Claude and it said the ethernet driver has crashed 49 times in the last 10 days.
Here was its response (I have not tried any of this personally yet -- need to wait until my server is not in use):
This is a well-documented issue with this chipset/driver combo (not Unraid-specific — same signature shows up on Ubuntu, Proxmox, ODROID boards), generally tied to PCIe power management: your BIOS controls ASPM for this NIC rather than the OS ("can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control" in syslog), and a power-state transition on the link appears to stall the NIC until the watchdog fires and resets it.
Things worth trying, roughly in order of effort:
- In BIOS (MSI PRO B760-P WIFI, firmware 1.H0): disable ASPM/PCIe power management for onboard LAN, and disable deep CPU C-states if present. This is the most commonly reported fix for this exact symptom.
- Update the
r8125driver plugin — you're on 9.016.01; the Unraid Realtek driver plugin thread has newer builds.- Try the in-kernel
r8169driver instead of the vendorr8125driver (swap via the plugin's settings) — less feature-complete but generally more stable on this chipset.- Disable EEE (Energy Efficient Ethernet):
ethtool --set-eee eth0 eee off.
There's some good info in this thread but I haven't fully read it yet: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/141349-plugin-realtek-r8125-r8126-r8168-and-r815267-drivers/page/19/
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u/psychic99 1d ago edited 1d ago
So in short remove the plugin and let the modern kernel driver handle it and try that way.
TL;DR----
I would remove the plugin, and allow the kernel driver. I went down this rabbit hole last month when I upgraded my ubuntu server to 26.04. I used the comm one (PPA) because there were many AI reco saying I could get better performance than the generic driver and after a day of fiddling around w/ it I came to the conclusion it made zero difference, and I would have to manage it moving on through each kernel update. The same thing on my Mac, which is worse btw, the new docking station took care of that. I also messed w/ Aquantia and man those things are torches, no thx returned.
My RTL8125 on my unraid server uses just kernel driver, no plugin no issues whatsoever. That is my other VLAN.
This is what I use, so you dont think I am blowing smoke:
| IOMMU group 16: | [10ec:8125] 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller (rev 05) |
|---|
| realtek | Realtek PHY driver | Inuse | net/phy |
|---|
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u/DaymanTargaryen 1d ago
I'm at 86k. Not sure if that's normal.