Purpose: To assist people posting clear and informative requests for help and to define the absolute minimum information required in order to provide to the helper what is needed and to reduce assumptions.
Joes Rules
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Be considerate. This rule applies to both the person asking a question as well as the person providing the answer.
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Do not “assume” we understand what you are talking about. We may be good with a lot of things but mind reading is not one of them. Be detailed in your question so we can minimize assumptions. All the steps below are presented to assist in minimizing the time we waste sending messages back and forth to pull data out of a user. This also leads to more accurate and faster diagnosis.
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Do not link to external sources where you might have a photo or image, instead include images in our forum. No one likes to click on an unknown link these days.
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IMPORTANT: When posting the output of TrueNAS (one of the commands listed here), ensure you including the resulting output in the code “</>” format to maintain the proper character spacing, which can be critical.
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When asking a question, ensure you provide the bare minimum system information as well:
The absolute minimum is: Include any error messages, TrueNAS Version, Motherboard, RAM Qty, CPU Make/Model, NIC - RealTek, Intel, etc. If you know, Hard Drive(s) Make/Model. This gives us a general idea what we are dealing with.Note: Depending on the problem, some of the information requested may actually not be needed but it is better to include it and not need it, than need it and not have it.)
Provide additional information for the given error and while it may not be all inclusive, the items below are generally some of the first things asked, and you may be asked to provide more specific information.
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If Hardware: if a pool, data corruption, or suspect drive failure, include the output of the following commands:
a.zpool status -v
b.zpool list(for size/capacity questions)
c.zfs list(for dataset questions)
d.smartctl -x /dev/DRIVEID(for drive questions. DRIVEID = ‘ada0’ or ‘sda’ for example.) Please do not remove any of the output, except you can remove the serial number if desired.
Advice: Always track your drives using the serial number as the DRIVE ID can change on you, it is not fixed to a specific drive. Use the serial number so you know which drive to replace if required. -
If Software: If a stability problem (the system reboots, freezes, strange operations out of the blue)
a. Did you recently (in the past 7 days), make ANY changes to TrueNAS? This could be making Administrative changes, updating TrueNAS to a new version, open the computer to do ANYTHING at all, move the computer. There are many things that can cause a system to become unstable, just think hard about it.
b. Did you run a Memory Stress Test such as ‘Memtest86’ and did you run it for 4 complete passes minimum? And the results. (A failure here could be faulty RAM, Motherboard, CPU, Power Supply, or heat saturation in the system, or the motherboard BIOS setup incorrectly especially for over-clockers).
c. Did you run a CPU Stress test such as ‘Prime95’ for at least 30 minutes? And the results. (A failure here could be due to a poorly installed heatsink, Motherboard, RAM, Power Supply, or heat saturation in the system)
d. Is there an issue with the GUI? As always, be very descriptive with the problem.
e. Is there a Permissions issue? Try to be specific here as well. What is the problem and what are you trying to accomplish. -
If you discover a software bug, file a bug report.
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If you are just asking for advice, especially about building a system of your own, Have you searched TrueNAS forums first. There are a bazillion postings about building a system. The most important part is this question: What is your use case? This means what are your intensions’ for this system build? Just a NAS, a Media Streaming Super Computer, Block Storage, etc. If you are unclear on the exact terminology then take your time and explain what you desire.
Examples of bad postings:
“Yo, my TrueNAS system just died. I think my data is gone. HELP, PLEASE!”
What are we missing?, well all the minimum data required. Is this CORE, SCALE, what version number, do you have enough RAM, is the CPU proper for the use case or maybe problematic, and the NIC if an add-on card. Oh yea, not very specific with “my TrueNAS system just died”. This can be interpreted many ways, so reduce the ability for us to make too many assumptions. What is clear in your head will not necessarily be clear to us, this is so very true.
Another bad example:
“I’ve been running FreeNAS 12 for a few years and now I have a hard drive failure. How do I know which drive to replace and how do I do that?”
What are we missing?, most of the minimum requested data but also the data from step 6 above. And you didn’t bother to read the User Guide which tells you how to replace a drive.
Summary:
If you haven’t done any legwork on your own, search for the specific problem you have, Google can find a lot that can help you. Read the User Guide (you should do that now anyway). When you post a problem, include all the minimum data. And above all, do not let us assume anything. My crystal ball broke a few years ago and I was unable to fix it.
I missed one item… Make the thread title something accurate. “System died” is not a very good one or “Help Me” (yes we have seen those), however “System died with hard drive errors” or “System died after puff of magic smoke escaped”.
Joes Rules to Answering a question, any question. (This is a long read)
Why do we need rules for those folks offering help to the others? To keep the peace and a friendly forum.
Many of us who have been here for a long time tend to see the same questions over and over. We may feel like a person is being lazy, or stupid, or whatever, and that may or maynot be the case. Sometimes when I feel frustrated, I just reduce my visiting time on the forum or stop for a while until I’m ready to continue. My only exception is Multi-Report as I enjoy supporting that for as long as it is needed. There are a lot of language barriers here and that can also lead to confusion which leads to frustration.
Do your best to curb answering a question while you feel frustrated. You do not have to answer a question just because you know the answer. We are all volunteers here and originally came to this forum for help as well, but migrated to helping others out. If you are not enjoying it then my advice is to take a break. Some people have taken extended breaks or just left the forum all together and I understand it. The three rules here are very short and simple.
- Be considerate.
- If you feel frustrated, don’t answer the question as your frustration will likely come across and you will say something that we all want to say however it is not appropriate. I have done this myself.
- Assume the person you are helping knows nothing at all when answering the question, anything less is an assumption.
This thread is closed and I will update as I can, make it formatted nicer, but the goal of this posting is to simply have people post better data when asking for help.
If you have a suggestion to modify this posting, please send me a message. I would be fine in making this more inclusive as I feel this will actually help the people who need to troubleshoot a problem.
EDIT: I invite any moderator to edit this posting as needed. This is meant to help the group and Joe is not all knowing, in spite of what you have heard 
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You know my goal is to just get the ball rolling in the right direction. Including additional “nice to have” data is great, provided it is marked as extra stuff that may speed up the troubleshooting process and not a minimum requirement. I really hope this helps the community.
By the way, I was unaware of this resource which posted a few days before my posting. Great minds think alike, or at least along the same lines.