Problem with USB 3 port

[NewToLinux]

I have a problem with a USB 3 port on a desktop running Debian Linux. The problem started when a system backup was attempted to a portable hard drive plugged into the USB 3 port. The backup operation had previously been done many times with no problems.

This time the mount operation failed with a message of the type 'can't find UUID=....'

Various commands such as fdisk -l showed that the kernel was not detecting the drive.

The drive was unplugged, then replug with a dmesg command issued straight after the replug.
The dmesg output seemed to indicate the portable hard drive itself had some problem.

A new portable hard drive was plugged into the port, but the kernel could not see the new drive, although a slowly flashing light on the drive indicated some power was reaching the hard drive.

I thought that perhaps the port was not supplying enough power to the drive, so I then plugged a new USB flash drive into the port. However the kernel would not recognise the flash drive.

Someone subsequently suggested that perhaps the power pins of the port were working but not the data pins.
This could perhaps be due to a problem with the port's USB header or associated cabling or possibly due to damage to
the host controller or associated wiring.

Any thoughts on this, please.

[Deb-fan]

Test on other pc's and/or other ports to help rule out hardware failure of drives, specific ports. What are those external drives formatted as ? Fat32, ext3-4 etc ? Run fsck or chkdsk on them. Plug them into suspected bad port, run "lsblk" to see if they show up and what as, then explictedly try mounting them. Say external drives do show up as a listed block device and it's sdc1 ie: "sudo mount -t auto /dev/sdc1 /mnt" Navigate to them with a file-manager or in command-line, are drives accessible, contents listed ? "ls -a" ? Error messages during this process ?

Could also try booting a live-session gnu/Nix OS(to RAM or plugged into one of the other ports on the system), plug in suspect external drives, test that problem port, do they work on it as hoped/expected ? If so indicates external drives and port are fine, issue could be the OS you've been using. Though am not real clear on the specifics to check if this is so, esp with systemd around now, have seen more than a tad of weirdness people reported experiencing as regards to issues with external drives. Improperly mounting/unmounting them etc. Has made me a tad leery, thus generally always try to unmount usb drives cleanly and do error check them occasionally with gparted or whatever. Still going to be times someone is rushing or whatever and just yanks a usb-drive out. Ah udev shouldn't have issues but dunno, seen enough horror stories to error on the side of caution.

Yep ... all over the place babble but you asked for thoughts. The process of elimination above has to make some sense here.

PS, common sense dictates problem is that shared port or the OS involved. Odds of two usb drives failing like this, ya know ? Good luck with it.

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

The dmesg output seemed to indicate the portable hard drive itself had some problem.

Can You show that dmesg output, starting from the moment when the drive is plugged-in ?

[p.H]

The dmesg output seemed to indicate the portable hard drive itself had some problem.

Too bad you did not care to post that output.

[cuckooflew]

This is really confusing, seems to be 3 or more threads on this ?
Is this the thread you refer to here ? http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 14#p725114

[Mr. Lumbergh]

I have a problem with a USB 3 port on a desktop running Debian Linux. The problem started when a system backup was attempted to a portable hard drive plugged into the USB 3 port. The backup operation had previously been done many times with no problems.

This time the mount operation failed with a message of the type 'can't find UUID=....'

Various commands such as fdisk -l showed that the kernel was not detecting the drive.

The drive was unplugged, then replug with a dmesg command issued straight after the replug.
The dmesg output seemed to indicate the portable hard drive itself had some problem.

A new portable hard drive was plugged into the port, but the kernel could not see the new drive, although a slowly flashing light on the drive indicated some power was reaching the hard drive.

I thought that perhaps the port was not supplying enough power to the drive, so I then plugged a new USB flash drive into the port. However the kernel would not recognise the flash drive.

Someone subsequently suggested that perhaps the power pins of the port were working but not the data pins.
This could perhaps be due to a problem with the port's USB header or associated cabling or possibly due to damage to
the host controller or associated wiring.

Any thoughts on this, please.

What kernel are you using, and does this effect other devices plugged into USB3 such as keyboard and mouse or just the HDD? I had an issue recently where restarting from sleep when booted to the 5.6 kernel caused me to lose all of my USB3 ports (they didn't even have power) but rolling back to the 5.4 solved the problem.

[NewToLinux]

Apologies to cuckooflew and others for posting topic in different forums and causing confusion.

The topic seemed to develop such that I thought it should now reside in Hardware.

I promise not to do that sort of thing in future.

[NewToLinux]

The kernel is the last Jessie kernel (I know it is very out of date - I have to do a backup of the system before
moving to Buster, so this USB port problem is very frustrating).

A new flash drive inserted in that USB port is also not recognised by the kernel.

Backups were working fine on a regular basis until the 'can't find UUID' problem. The portable hard drive with the UUID problem was left plugged in to the port all the time between backups, although only mounted when a backup was required.

[NewToLinux]

dmesg  |   tail  -20
[260949.040348] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdf] Device not ready
[260949.040350] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdf]  [260949.040351] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[260949.040352] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdf]  [260949.040353] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] [260949.040354] Info fld=0x0
[260949.040355] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdf]  [260949.040356] <<vendor>> ASC=0xff ASCQ=0xffASC=0xff <<vendor>> ASCQ=0xff
[260949.040357] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdf] CDB: [260949.040358] Read(10): 28 00 00 3c f3 80 00 00 08 00
[260989.669839] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 13
[260990.006438] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 14 using xhci_hcd
[261297.336903] quiet_error: 4 callbacks suppressed
[261297.336905] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 44
[261297.336908] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 45
[261297.336909] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 46
[261297.336911] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 47
[261297.336912] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 44
[261311.606197] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 44
[261312.855893] Buffer I/O error on device sdj1, logical block 44


Above is result of dmesg issued immediately after original hard drive was plugged back into the USB 3 port.

That's what made me suspect original hard drive was faulty.

But subsequent plugging in of new hard drive and also new flash drive into the USB 3 port and checking with fdisk -l
showed that neither of those devices were recognised by the kernel.

My conclusion is that a fault has developed with that port itself or with its host controller.

[Deb-fan]

Deleted a post cause thought it was beating a dead horse. Still yes, telling people you're still running Debian Jesse for some reason could be useful. Mentioned source of your issues could stem from a messed up Os and have nothing to do with hardware. Ah ... good lk.

[NewToLinux]

Both a new portable hard drive and a new flash drive have each, in turn, been plugged into the same USB 3 port.
Neither of them have been recognised by the Debian kernel.

There are 4 USB buses - 3 have USB 2 root hubs while the other has a USB 3 root hub.

The kernel recognises 5 USB devices (mouse, old flash drive, card reader, printer, scanner),
which are each connected to the same USB 2 root hub.

The question is why are the new hard drive and new flash drive not being recognised by the kernel.

Is it a hardware problem with the USB 3 port or could it possibly a software problem ?

Which is more likely and what tests (both hardware and software) can be done, apart from the usual
dmesg, fdisk, lsusb, lsblk, blkid checks ?

One or two people have mentioned turning off the computer completely (I.e. at the mains), waiting for a few
minutes and then rebooting. I am hesitant to do this because the exact cause of the USB 3 port problem is not
known and there is thus a possibility that the computer will not reboot.

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

You didn't show a full dmesg output related to that USB drive - the moment when the device was plugged in is not visible.
Can You show full log?
The first line should look like this:

Code: Select all

usb 2-3: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd

It woud be best if You could post the logs for both HDD and that USB flash dongle (and use code tags)

[NewToLinux]

I have now seen a number of cases where USB devices are not detected.

It seems that the xhci_hcd driver needs to be replaced/reinitialised.

Some of the posts recommend that the computer is completely powered down (I.e. all external devices are unmounted,
the computer is switched off and unplugged from the mains). After a wait of, say, up to 30 minutes, the computer is
rebooted. The xhci_hcd driver should be reinitialised by the reboot, so the USB 3 port should then work fine.

Other posts suggest that instead of a power down and reboot, the xhci_hcd driver could be disabled and then re-enabled
similar to suggestion in https://zedt.eu/tech/linux/restarting-u ... em-centos/

Does anyone know which directory contains the xhci_hcd driver in Debian, please ?

[peter_irich]

I thini xhci-hcd is the builting module. See /lib/modules/`uname -r`/modules.builtin .

Peter.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Have you tried

Code: Select all

# modprobe -r xhci-hcd
# modprobe xhci-hcd

[NewToLinux]

The new flash drive was unplugged from the USB 3 port.

As root, the following command was run

Code: Select all

dmesg* |* tail

The output was :

Code: Select all

[3974120.938338] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 66 using xhci_hcd
[3974126.430777] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 67 using xhci_hcd
[3974131.923271] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 68 using xhci_hcd
[3974137.415713] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 69 using xhci_hcd
[3974142.908184] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 70 using xhci_hcd
[3974148.400664] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 71 using xhci_hcd
[3974153.893132] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 72 using xhci_hcd
[3974159.385762] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 73 using xhci_hcd
[3974164.878067] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 74 using xhci_hcd
[3974170.370558] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 75 using xhci_hcd

Then the new flash drive was plugged back into the USB 3 port and then, again as root,
the following command was run

Code: Select all

dmesg | tail -50

The output was as follows :

Code: Select all

[3973945.175272] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 34 using xhci_hcd
[3973950.667736] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 35 using xhci_hcd
[3973956.164234] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 36 using xhci_hcd
[3973961.660705] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 37 using xhci_hcd
[3973967.153175] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 38 using xhci_hcd
[3973972.645644] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 39 using xhci_hcd
[3973978.138108] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 40 using xhci_hcd
[3973983.630571] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 41 using xhci_hcd
[3973989.123038] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 42 using xhci_hcd
[3973994.615532] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 43 using xhci_hcd
[3974000.107987] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 44 using xhci_hcd
[3974005.600444] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 45 using xhci_hcd
[3974011.092914] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 46 using xhci_hcd
[3974016.586439] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 47 using xhci_hcd
[3974022.069876] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 48 using xhci_hcd
[3974027.562378] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 49 using xhci_hcd
[3974033.054785] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 50 using xhci_hcd
[3974038.547262] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 51 using xhci_hcd
[3974044.039723] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 52 using xhci_hcd
[3974049.532213] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 53 using xhci_hcd
[3974055.024682] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 54 using xhci_hcd
[3974060.517132] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 55 using xhci_hcd
[3974066.013620] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 56 using xhci_hcd
[3974071.506102] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 57 using xhci_hcd
[3974076.998569] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 58 using xhci_hcd
[3974082.491021] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 59 using xhci_hcd
[3974087.983486] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 60 using xhci_hcd
[3974093.475956] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 61 using xhci_hcd
[3974098.968439] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 62 using xhci_hcd
[3974104.460916] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 63 using xhci_hcd
[3974109.953390] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 64 using xhci_hcd
[3974115.445836] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 65 using xhci_hcd
[3974120.938338] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 66 using xhci_hcd
[3974126.430777] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 67 using xhci_hcd
[3974131.923271] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 68 using xhci_hcd
[3974137.415713] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 69 using xhci_hcd
[3974142.908184] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 70 using xhci_hcd
[3974148.400664] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 71 using xhci_hcd
[3974153.893132] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 72 using xhci_hcd
[3974159.385762] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 73 using xhci_hcd
[3974164.878067] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 74 using xhci_hcd
[3974170.370558] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 75 using xhci_hcd
[3974189.313961] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 76 using xhci_hcd
[3974194.806428] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 77 using xhci_hcd
[3974200.298916] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 78 using xhci_hcd
[3974205.791363] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 79 using xhci_hcd
[3974211.283830] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 80 using xhci_hcd
[3974216.776300] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 81 using xhci_hcd
[3974222.268794] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 82 using xhci_hcd
[3974227.761269] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 83 using xhci_hcd

This looks wrong. Why is the above happening ?

~~~~

Mod Note: please use code tags when posting terminal output, I've added them for this post to show you how — HoaS

[NewToLinux]

Would the problem with the USB port possibly cause a problem if an attempt is made to reboot the system ?

[NewToLinux]

I am still struggling to solve the problem with the malfunctioning USB 3 port on a desktop
running Debian.

I would be very grateful if someone could please give useful answers to the following questions :-

(1) Can the desktop be safely rebooted, if needed, given the USB 3 problem?

(2) Can the USB 3 problem be fixed in some way or is the port now permanently
unavailable?

(3) If the USB 3 port is unavailable, can the new portable hard drive be used to
do a back-up of the system from the USB 2 port currently occupied by a card reader
or is there any risk the card reader will be messed up again afterwards ?

(On a previous occasion, a portable hard drive was plugged into this USB 2 port
in place of the card reader. The system issued a message indicating the port was busy.
The card reader was plugged back into the USB 2 port and it was then found that
a card inserted into the card reader could not be mounted).

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

It's not clear to me if You are talking about front-panel USB sockets (cables involved) or not.
It's also not clear (You didn't explained that too) whether those USB v3.0 ports (are they USB v3.0, v3.1 or v3.2 ?) are integrated into the chipset (what chipset?) or are You using some PCI(-E) expansion card? (what card/chipset?)

Assuming that it's an MB-integrated front-panel USB v3.0++ port, I would start with checking the connections and replacing the cable(s).
If it's an expansion card - they are usually equipped with an external power supply connector - usually it's of *very* low quality - the main source of problems.

Definitely, it's not a kernel problem.

[cuckooflew]

Would the problem with the USB port possibly cause a problem if an attempt is made to reboot the system ?

This is something I see you mention/ask several times, but I do not understand why you think it would effect the booting of your PC, Do you have a OS installed to your PC ?Or are you using the usb drive to boot ? Also:

NewToLinux>>when a system backup was attempted to a portable hard drive plugged into the USB 3 port. The backup operation had previously been done many times with no problems.

You know, in all these posts and I am not sure on the other threads , but you have not mentioned anything about how you were making the backup, I mean, what commands, or method ?
If the machine was bootable before you started playing around with this usb device, then there is no reason it (the PC) would not still be bootable, unless you did something you are not telling us, eg:using the 'dd' command to make the back up,...? any way, why is it you think the computer won't boot ?
Do you have a "boot cd" or other "boot device" ? You should have something, if not , make a good boot cd, or usb boot device, it does not matter if it is usb 2, in fact that might be better if you are concerned about the usb 3 port,...Turn the PC off and try rebooting, or use "reboot" command, see what happens, we can not predict what will happen, computers can be very unpredictable, more so when someone using "sudo" starts messing around, and does not really know what they did,.. If it does not reboot, use your "boot cd" to boot it,...
If you installed grub to the usb device, instead of to the hard drive, that also could result in it not rebooting, but I have not seen that you mention anything like that...

I would be very grateful if someone could please give useful answers to the following questions :-

(1) Can the desktop be safely rebooted, if needed, given the USB 3 problem?

It should be able to boot from it's own HD, or like wise, you could use the usb 2 port, You could also use the Optical drive and a boot cd (if it has a optical drive), or you could use a portable usb optical drive, and a boot cd as well, in a nut shell there are several ways the machine can be rebooted, but if you don't have any of the tools , you either need to get them, or take it to a shop, where they do have the tools needed, ... I know you are going to say this is not a usefull answer, but give the fact that you do not give any usefull details about what you have done to the machine that might have rendered it un bootable, nobody can give a usefull answer.