taper error after upgrade

[casey]

Hello,

I'm suddenly getting this error from 3.3.9_4,1 on FreeBSD 12.3-RELEASE-p4 after a recent upgrade. There were no config or hardware changes. 2 different tapes have produced this exact error. Is this a symptom of a failing tape drive?

Fri Jul  1 01:45:34 2022: thd-0x802ce3f00: taper: Device tape:/dev/nsa0 error = 'Error writing block: Short write on tape device: Tried 32768, got 24576.  Is the drive using a block size smaller than 32768 bytes?'
Fri Jul  1 01:45:34 2022: thd-0x802ce3f00: taper: Device tape:/dev/nsa0 setting status flag(s): DEVICE_STATUS_DEVICE_ERROR
Fri Jul  1 01:45:34 2022: thd-0x802ce3f00: taper: xfer-dest-taper-splitter CRC: 96d33055:29825302528
Fri Jul  1 01:45:34 2022: thd-0x802c19c00: taper: Cancelling <[email protected] (<[email protected]> -> <[email protected]>)>
Fri Jul  1 01:45:34 2022: thd-0x802ce3de0: taper: xfer-source-holding CRC: 0779a346:29826646016

[email protected]:/tmp # mt -f /dev/nsa0 status                                                                                           
Drive: sa0: <HP Ultrium 2-SCSI S65D> Serial Number: MXP09038KG
---------------------------------
Mode      Density              Blocksize      bpi      Compression
Current:  0x42:LTO-2           variable       187909   enabled (0x1)
---------------------------------
Current Driver State: at rest.
---------------------------------
Partition:   0      Calc File Number:   0     Calc Record Number: 0
Residual:    0  Reported File Number:   0 Reported Record Number: 0
Flags: BOP

[casey]

Any suggestions on this? I'm pretty much at a dead end since I can't really tell the source of the error. Does this seem like a failing drive?

[casey]

For posterity's sake, this was solved by a hard reboot and cable reseat... go figure.