Flaky USB3 on Bionic ayufan image

[hackish]

I'm running the ayufan bionic 0.6.44 image. I switched over to Rock64 from a libre ROC-RK3328-CC board running xenial because it too had some flaky usb3 support. I mounted a USB hard drive attached to a USB3 hub. From there I will load up to 8 microSD cards, each with video or photos and simlutaneously copy the data to the hard drive. 

My system runs flawlessly on the USB2 port with several different hubs. Once I plug it into the USB3 port, it will copy only a few hundred mb of data and the ports will disappear until i reboot. It is lost to the point that even plugging a mouse into the usb3 port does nothing. The symptoms on the ROC-RK3328 board were similar, but it occurred consistently after copying only a few mb of data. Syslog doesn't spit out anything meaningful from what I've seen. 

Although I haven't touched linux in many years, I wonder if this could be an issue at the driver level?


I was wondering if anyone encountered this problem, and what steps would be useful to narrow it down to finding a resolution

thanks

[evilbunny]

I was wondering <snip> what steps would be useful to narrow it down to finding a resolution

Have you tried an older kernel, like 0.5.15 ?

0.6.15 seemed to be pretty good for me as well and has a bunch of patches incorporated since 0.5.15.

[hackish]

I was wondering <snip> what steps would be useful to narrow it down to finding a resolution

Have you tried an older kernel, like 0.5.15 ?

0.6.15 seemed to be pretty good for me as well and has a bunch of patches incorporated since 0.5.15.

I have not tried 0.5.15 and I'm not sure how to try that out. The ROC board encounters similar problems and their image is xenial so I think it's a much earlier kernel 0.4.x maybe? I'm not terribly used to the linux thing where kernel upgrades and patches are fast and furious. I'm not certain that this problem is in the kernel space or in the daemon that does all the work.

[pfeerick]

I have not tried 0.5.15 and I'm not sure how to try that out. The ROC board encounters similar problems and their image is xenial so I think it's a much earlier kernel 0.4.x maybe? I'm not terribly used to the linux thing where kernel upgrades and patches are fast and furious. I'm not certain that this problem is in the kernel space or in the daemon that does all the work.

eb meant image there, not kernel.


If you haven't already, try 0.6.44 (latest release) and then also https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-b...tag/0.5.15 for comparison. The current kernel version is 4.4.126, and you may find your other board is something earlier like a 3.10 or another 4.4.x derivative based on the source code rockchip provides and maintains. If you can pin it down to a driver issue, you may be able to follow it up with them to get it fixed.

[fysa]

Try a different USB3 hub. I am having success with an older Uspeed 3.0 hub (small white one) and two USB 3.0/eSATA Mediasonic 8-bay enclosures. I have other 3.0 hubs that had random problems and had to try a few..

[i69fstop]

Try a different USB3 hub.  I am having success with an older Uspeed 3.0 hub (small white one) and two USB 3.0/eSATA Mediasonic 8-bay enclosures.  I have other 3.0 hubs that had random problems and had to try a few..

I agreed with @fysa.

I have random issue with different usb hubs and 4 usb HD enclosures.
I switch between them, and finally found a setup that is stable.

[hackish]

So I've tried all the different linux versions I could find without any luck. I need a hub with 9 ports on it, and that seems to limit the options. The hubs I've tested with (Orico and iHarbort) both worked perfectly well in Windows. I don't know if their implementation is poor but drivers manage to work around it, or if the linux USB system is lacking or just not properly configured. Any ideas?

[fire219]

So I've tried all the different linux versions I could find without any luck. I need a hub with 9 ports on it, and that seems to limit the options. The hubs I've tested with (Orico and iHarbort) both worked perfectly well in Windows. I don't know if their implementation is poor but drivers manage to work around it, or if the linux USB system is lacking or just not properly configured. Any ideas?

I understand that it can't be helped that your project needs that many ports, but a USB hub that large tends to just be asking for trouble. Strange little issues arise when (often poorly designed) USB hub controllers have to split the data up that many ways.

I'd be willing to bet that it's the "poorly designed" bit of that which is the issue. The designer(s) of those hub controllers probably took some shortcuts which manage to not harm Windows compatibility, but do cause issues under Linux (and maybe MacOS).

I know this probably reads as a redirection of blame, but the USB3 port on the Rock64 tends to be very stable under most use cases.