Trouble with two USB ports

Software PureOS
1

Hi,

I have issues with two USB slots on my Librem 15.4.
(1) The upper one on the left side (right after the power plugin) and (2) the lower one on the right side.

When I connect devices such as keyboards or mouses, they generally do not have power and the computer does not recognize them.

When I attached a Toshiba USB disk, Canvio Advance, at first to the lower right side USB port, then, surprsingly, the device was recognbized and the LED was shining blue (3.0) and could be mounted. Although a udev rule was not working as it does at the other two remaing USB ports (lower left and upper right).
And now, when I attach the disk, the LED is white?, and the disk manager is not showing any USB disk device. All very confusing.

When I connect a Nitrokey before booting to the upper left USB port to decrypt my laptop at boot everythings works. Mostly when booted its still works but ocassionally it stops working. But latest when I detach the key and attached it again at the upper left USB port, then again, and like all other devices, it is not further recognized.

I have this for a while and I worked around it by not using all ports. But now I need them and I do not know how to approach this issue.

Kind regards,

2

Do the commands sudo lsusb and sudo dmesg give you any information about the problem when you plug in USB devices? dmesg should show you any USB error messages and lsusb should show you whether the devices are being recognized correctly.

These links may help you:


https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kernel/Debugging/USB
1 Like
3

thx for your support.

lsusb does not give any info on non working USB devices.

dmesg give a lot of information. parts of it, which look eventually striking are:

#################
[ 647.408914] usb 1-4: USB disconnect, device number 3
[ 647.564123] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=2001:0a61:0a2f:ca02:0c8b:1f72:aeca:e813 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=925718 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8612 LEN=24
[ 647.564142] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=2001:0a61:0a2f:ca02:0c8b:1f72:aeca:e813 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=727752 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8610 LEN=24
[ 647.564152] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:9cb2:7933:a2be:8ae6 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=111201 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8612 LEN=24
[ 647.564161] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:9cb2:7933:a2be:8ae6 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=786057 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8610 LEN=24
[ 647.574403] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=2001:0a61:0a2f:ca02:0c8b:1f72:aeca:e813 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=925718 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8612 LEN=24
[ 647.574420] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=2001:0a61:0a2f:ca02:0c8b:1f72:aeca:e813 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=727752 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8610 LEN=24
[ 647.574433] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:9cb2:7933:a2be:8ae6 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=111201 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8612 LEN=24
[ 647.574445] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:9cb2:7933:a2be:8ae6 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=786057 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8610 LEN=24
#################

Not sure what to see in this.

Yesterday, I started a live-cd to see if there is a difference which there was not. I tested the USB disk at the ports in question.

When I returned to the installed system the Nitrokey does not work anymore. Also if conntected before booting. Which was different before.

Kind regards,

4

These are all firewall packet block messages I would say. Probably not relevant.

5

hi, thx

I just conntected and disconnected the USB disk over and over again.

After the fifth time or so the lower right port suddenly detects the disk.

Before:

$ sudo dmesg | grep usb

[ 1.510669] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[ 1.510675] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[ 1.510685] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[ 1.524223] usb usb1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002, bcdDevice= 4.19
[ 1.524225] usb usb1: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[ 1.524225] usb usb1: Product: xHCI Host Controller
[ 1.524226] usb usb1: Manufacturer: Linux 4.19.0-14-amd64 xhci-hcd
[ 1.524227] usb usb1: SerialNumber: 0000:00:14.0
[ 1.524717] usb usb2: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0003, bcdDevice= 4.19
[ 1.524718] usb usb2: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[ 1.524719] usb usb2: Product: xHCI Host Controller
[ 1.524720] usb usb2: Manufacturer: Linux 4.19.0-14-amd64 xhci-hcd
[ 1.524721] usb usb2: SerialNumber: 0000:00:14.0
[ 1.861723] usb 1-3: new low-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[ 2.013951] usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=c077, bcdDevice=72.00
[ 2.013954] usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 2.013956] usb 1-3: Product: USB Optical Mouse
[ 2.013958] usb 1-3: Manufacturer: Logitech
[ 2.032569] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[ 2.032570] usbhid: USB HID core driver
[ 2.034865] input: Logitech USB Optical Mouse as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/0003:046D:C077.0001/input/input7
[ 2.035081] hid-generic 0003:046D:C077.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Logitech USB Optical Mouse] on usb-0000:00:14.0-3/input0
[ 2.141901] usb 1-4: new full-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
[ 2.291715] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=20a0, idProduct=4108, bcdDevice= 1.01
[ 2.291717] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2.291719] usb 1-4: Product: Nitrokey Pro
[ 2.291721] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: Nitrokey
[ 2.291722] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 000000000000000000008952
[ 2.294903] hid-generic 0003:20A0:4108.0002: hiddev0,hidraw1: USB HID v1.10 Device [Nitrokey Nitrokey Pro] on usb-0000:00:14.0-4/input0
[ 2.421804] usb 1-6: new full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[ 2.571387] usb 1-6: New USB device found, idVendor=04ca, idProduct=300d, bcdDevice= 0.01
[ 2.571391] usb 1-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[ 2.701821] usb 1-7: new high-speed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
[ 2.899027] usb 1-7: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=d102, bcdDevice=10.09
[ 2.899030] usb 1-7: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=6
[ 2.899032] usb 1-7: Product: HD WebCam
[ 2.899034] usb 1-7: Manufacturer: QUANTA
[ 17.498803] systemd[1]: /lib/systemd/system/usbguard.service:7: PIDFile= references path below legacy directory /var/run/, updating /var/run/usbguard.pid → /run/usbguard.pid; please update the unit file accordingly.
[ 18.019291] input: HD WebCam: HD WebCam as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/input/input10
[ 18.019343] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[ 18.061887] usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb
[ 18.065642] usb 1-6: firmware: failed to load ar3k/AthrBT_0x11020100.dfu (-2)
[ 18.065645] usb 1-6: Direct firmware load for ar3k/AthrBT_0x11020100.dfu failed with error -2
[ 18.065673] usbcore: registered new interface driver ath3k

After the disk LED turns blue instead of white and shows up the following additional lines are visible

[ 742.112103] usb 2-2: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[ 742.132816] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0480, idProduct=0821, bcdDevice= 0.00
[ 742.132817] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[ 742.132818] usb 2-2: Product: External USB 3.0
[ 742.132819] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: TOSHIBA
[ 742.132819] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 20200726014528F
[ 742.132933] usb 2-2: Device is not authorized for usage
[ 742.148873] usb 2-2: authorized to connect
[ 742.157169] usb-storage 2-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 742.159903] scsi host2: usb-storage 2-2:1.0
[ 742.160341] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[ 742.166780] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas

No luck with the other port though.
It will not be a loose contact?!

Kind regards,

6

hi,

I just started the new pureos-10 from a live cd. Before I used a Ubuntu live cd, as it was ready to use.

I connected device to the problem ports and they all worked. I restarted the installed system pureos-9 and they still work.

This is very good. But I really do not understand why this is the case. Should a live cd not have any effects on the installed system?

Kind regards,

7

A Live CD won’t have any effect on the OS installed in your SSD. A newer OS may support more USB peripherals, but you say that the USB ports are now working in PureOS 9, so that suggests that either you changed your installed system in some way or you have a board with a flaky connection to the USB ports. You could have loose solder joints in the USB connectors or microcracks in the USB wires on the motherboard, but that isn’t a very common problem in my experience.

8

At the very least I would be wondering whether this means “cold” or “warm”. After using a live “CD” you would need a cold restart to ensure no possible effect on what you boot after that.

Are you interested in updating to PureOS 10?

You might also want to check whether you have the latest firmware. Are you using Coreboot/BIOS or Pureboot?

9

Thx.

I agree that it is rather unlikey a hardware issue. Although the USB disk works very well. When I attach mouse our keyboard, they still do not work.

10

Thank you.

I still run PureOS 9 but 10 is on the todo list. Since a fresh install is the best way to do such upgrades, I still hesitate.

Firmware is always up to date. Someone provided a nice script in this forum which runs weekly and tells me, if an update is available.

For the cold reboot, does this mean that I have to switch off the computer and wait before I start with the live CD? Or is there more to do?

What I forgot to mention. Despite the fact that reconnecting devices and rebooting with live CD resulted in the key and the USB disk working again, the mouse and keyboard still do not work. As if some configuration distinguishes between the devices. I have USBguard installed, as experiment and for curiosity, but no devices are blocked. Despite that, I am not aware that I messed with any USB settings.

- RuleFile                                                [ GEFUNDEN ]
  - Controllers & Devices allow                           [ 49 ]
  - Controllers & Devices block                           [ 0 ]
  - Controllers & Devices reject                          [ 0 ]
11

After, not before. It would not normally be necessary or even make a difference but in order to be sure that the live CD has not affected the state of the system, you would switch off before booting back into the normal environment.

But which? Coreboot/BIOS or Pureboot?

12

Thx. The firmware is Pureboot 19.

13

Maybe a fresh install of PureOS 10 on the USB disk that reportedly now works. Then you could try out a real install of PureOS 10 for a while with your hardware and see whether you are happy. You would probably want a few cold and warm restarts to ensure a level of confidence that it does reliably come up in a working state.

However I am not sure that that works properly with Pureboot and the Librem Key (i.e. it doesn’t work to have a choice of two or more bootable disks). So you would have to ignore any boot integrity issues reported by Pureboot / the Librem Key.