16 bytes ignored; consider an update

What is the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a

Thanks

carl@g2a:~$ lsb_release -a; uname -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric

Linux g2a 3.0.0-12-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 7 14:50:42 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Are there any bugs reported. I don't suggest you start adding Precise debs to your OS, you will get a big mess

"dont do X" doesn't solve my problem.

> Are there any bugs reported
clicking on the Bugs button up top: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mcelog
2 bugs.

"The mcelog in Oneiric Alph1 is still 1.0-pre3 which is a very old version without support for some new platforms and features."

the box is fairly old: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III CPU family

But if the app itself says "consider an update" seems like a reasonable thing to consider.

What is the output of:

apt-cache policy mcelog

I assume mcelog is the package in question. Change the command if it is not :)

mcelog:
  Installed: 1.0~pre3-72-gcbd4da4-1
  Candidate: 1.0~pre3-72-gcbd4da4-1
  Version table:
 *** 1.0~pre3-72-gcbd4da4-1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

If you check:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/mcelog
http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/mcelog

They are the same verson

"1.0-pre3 which is a very old version"
and same version is in precise.

Where is a newer version?

And how do I find out what the error is?

Looks like you might be seeing something similar to:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=507026

So unfortunately, the correct thing to do here is to run a kernel bisection, which is not a straightforward procedure.

The mcelog.h file in mcelog that you have installed has the redhad modified struct, sooo it looks like it maybe shouldnt be doing that, or needs more padding, or something.

Practically speaking, you need to compare it against to /usr/include/asm/mce.h in your kernel headers.

An update may not do anything here, as there needs to be a direct match between the two definitions (why mcelog is duplicating structures, rather than using the kernel headers, I do not know...). AFAICS either it should create a compile time error using preprocessor instructions so it doesn't compile, or it should use the kernel headers.

Short answer, there needs to be some reprogramming done. You can try re-do a git checkout of upstream, compile that, and see if that fixes your problem:

https://github.com/andikleen/mcelog

If you have not rebuilt packages, you might want to look here:
http://www.moosechips.com/2008/09/ubuntu-rebuild-a-source-package/

Note that as the mcelog developer placed his tarballs on kernel.org, and kernel.org was taken down due to an intrusion, it might be hard to find those tarballs, so you will have to work with the github git version.

I can't work out how old the latest package is -- I don't think its that old, as it is in debian from a few months ago, however downloading that git repo, and filtering to find the revision ID gcbd4... shows nothing. It probably means that the repo is lost until kernel.org comes back up properly.

I have the same issue on 3 different machines on 12.04 with different CPU's, and get the same result compiling directly from upstream:

tlb@tlbdesk:~/git/webqueue$ cat /proc/cpuinfo|grep 'model name'
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz
tlb@tlbdesk:~/git/webqueue$ sudo mcelog
mcelog: warning: 16 bytes ignored in each record
mcelog: consider an update

tlb@tlbserv:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo|grep 'model name'
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
tlb@tlbserv:~$ sudo mcelog
[sudo] password for tlb:
mcelog: warning: 16 bytes ignored in each record
mcelog: consider an update

root@web6:/sys/devices/system/machinecheck# cat /proc/cpuinfo|grep 'model name'
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz
tlb@tlbserv:~$ sudo mcelog
[sudo] password for tlb:
mcelog: warning: 16 bytes ignored in each record
mcelog: consider an update