Force iSCSI Disconnect

[AbydosOne]

(cross-posted from Superuser, because it's all crickets over there...)

 

I've been toying around with iSCSI for a little while (FreeNAS 11.1-U5 target, Win10 Pro (1803) initiator) and have run into what would be a bit of a deal-breaking issue: I can't seem to disconnect from an iSCSI target, regardless of what I try. All methods get a "The session cannot be logged out since a device on that session is currently being used" message, and fails to disconnect.

 

What I've tried:

• Clicking Disconnect in the iSCSI Initiator panel
• Running the equivalent command in PowerShell
• Taking the disk offline in Disk Management first
• Disabling the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator device in Device Manager (requires a reboot, not tenable)
• Turning the iSCSI service off in FreeNAS (this works eventually, but I'd like to not have to do it this way, if I can help it)
• Per other sources, I've removed all favorite targets and target portals in the iSCSI properties dialog first

The 'device' is not currently initiated in Windows, and therefore does not have a file system (so, if I understand correctly, cannot be accessed by the OS in a way that would hold the connection open); it's just a disk device at the moment.

 

My preferred behavior would be to disconnect on request (or at least, successfully force disconnect), so I can then connect from another machine, and then back again when necessary.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

 

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Hardware Details:

Win10 Pro System (desktop): Ryzen 5 1600X, 16GB RAM, NVMe boot drive, Mellanox ConnectX-2 (direct connection to server)

FreeNAS System (server): Core i3-4170, 32GB RAM, 4×10TB in RAIDZ2, Mellanox ConnectX-2 (direct connection to desktop)

[Windows7ge]

If you turn the computer off and on again you should be able to click disconnect and it should work. I've had this issue.

 

I just say though is iSCSI a necessity? I played with it for a while myself and found there's no real benifit to using it unless you have a real specific application for it like a program that only works with local disks but you want the functionality of zfs or a remote system that manages your drives.

 

You're more likely better off sticking with SMB. This PC can let you set it up as a network drive so it shows up with a drive letter making it more easily accessible.

[FECV]

Just ran into this issue on Server 2019 so pretty much Windows 10 and my solution was stupid. I had task manager open which monitors disk I/O and once i closed that iSCSI initiator disconnected normally.

[Bamodus]

On 8/12/2019 at 6:29 PM, FECV said:

Just ran into this issue on Server 2019 so pretty much Windows 10 and my solution was stupid. I had task manager open which monitors disk I/O and once i closed that iSCSI initiator disconnected normally.

I know this is an old post, but I've always had this problem in various WIndows Server OSes and it was so consistent that I had just assumed that it was Windows being Windows. I finally got fed up and decided to revisit the issue again when I came across this post.

 

I almost always have Task Manager open, and I found that closing it resolved the issue for me as well. I did, however want to add some additional clarification:

 

While closing Task Manager fixed the issue, it is not the actual root of the problem. The problem is having Task Manager open with disk performance counters enabled. By default, these counters are disabled on Windows Server 2012/2012 R2/2016/2019; however, I would generally enable them on my Windows Server installs by opening the command prompt (or PowerShell) as an administrator and entering the following command:

diskperf -Y

The disk performance counters can also be disabled using the same command:

diskperf -N

This unfortunately hides the disk performance metrics in Task Manager, but I no longer receive a "The session cannot be logged out since a device on that session is currently being used." message when attempting to disconnect an iSCSI volume with Task Manager open. I don't even need to take the volume offline first; it just works. It's still best practice to take the volume offline from the disk management screen first though, just in case some other process is trying to access it.

[Kilrah]

Task manager open will often also tell you "the disk is in use" when trying to safely eject a regular USB drive. Took me a while to link the 2, mostly becasue I never do it for drives other than my backup sets.