EXT3-fs error in htree_dirblock_to_tree

[David Carter <dpc22 cam ac uk>]

Hello all,

Does anyone know if the following is likely to be a software problem or a 
hardware fault?

  Oct 22 14:01:43 cyrus-26 kernel:
   EXT3-fs error (device md0): htree_dirblock_to_tree:
   bad entry in directory #360809233: rec_len is
   smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0, name_len=0

A quick Google didn't tell me much, although a couple of people seem to 
have seen similar problems after hardware problems, and one person seemed 
to be able to trigger it using an "insane file system test":

  http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-ext4 vger kernel org/msg02515.html

The filesystem in question is a Cyrus mailstore: lots of write (and fsync) 
activity with small files. It was created with:

  mkfs.ext3 -T news -m 1 -O dir_index -j -J size=256 /dev/md0

and is currently mounted data=ordered. Platform is SLES10.

We haven't seen one of these before, but we are in the process of moving 
from reiser (which never did anything like this) to ext3/htree, so it 
would be useful to known if it is a known problem. Thanks.

--
David Carter                             Email: David Carter ucs cam ac uk
University Computing Service,            Phone: (01223) 334502
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street,       Fax:   (01223) 334679
Cambridge UK. CB2 3QH.