Piaware fails to auto restart after USB disconnect, throws MTP errors

[dvsvejk]

This issue has been present for me for a few months, but thought it was maybe a one-off so waited to see if it returned.

Today I jostled the USB cable connecting my dongle to the Pi and subsequently lost connection. I noticed this immediately and made sure the cable was again firmly connected. After that the logs show errors with mtp-probe saying there is no MTP device. My solution to get things back quickly was a system reboot and then all was well.

I first saw the problem back in April and it was not caught until hours after the disconnect. There was an endless loop of these mtp errors for six hours during which time there were also kernel taint messages. Again a system reboot brought all back to normal. This occassion happened shortly after I upgraded to the 6.1 kernel - not sure if that has a bearing on all this. I still have the ugly log events from this episode.

Here is what the log threw from today’s hiccup. Anyone have ideas (other than don’t hit the USB cable )?

Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware dump1090-fa[29381]: cb transfer status: 1, canceling...
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware dump1090-fa[29381]: rtlsdr: rtlsdr_read_async returned unexpectedly, probably lost the USB device, bailing out
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware dump1090-fa[29381]: Tue Jul 18 11:26:55 2023 UTC  Waiting for receive thread termination
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware dump1090-fa[29381]: Tue Jul 18 11:26:55 2023 UTC  Abnormal exit.
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware systemd[1]: dump1090-fa.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware systemd[1]: dump1090-fa.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware systemd[1]: dump1090-fa.service: Consumed 1d 12h 38min 38.949s CPU time.
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.182942] usb 1-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 6
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.492358] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.644271] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=2832, bcdDevice= 1.00
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.644295] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.644311] usb 1-1.2: Product: RTL2832U
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.644324] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Realtek
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware kernel: [1188542.644336] usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 00001000
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 7: "/sys/devices/platform/scb/fd500000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2"
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 7 was not an MTP device
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 7: "/sys/devices/platform/scb/fd500000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2"
Jul 18 11:26:55 piaware mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 7 was not an MTP device
Jul 18 11:26:58 piaware kernel: [1188545.767453] usb 1-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 7
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware kernel: [1188546.072458] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware kernel: [1188546.214276] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=2832, bcdDevice= 1.00
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware kernel: [1188546.214300] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware kernel: [1188546.214315] usb 1-1.2: Product: RTL2832U
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware kernel: [1188546.214328] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Realtek
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware kernel: [1188546.214340] usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 00001000
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 8: "/sys/devices/platform/scb/fd500000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2"
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 8 was not an MTP device
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 8: "/sys/devices/platform/scb/fd500000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2"
Jul 18 11:26:59 piaware mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 8 was not an MTP device

// I rebooted at this point //

[tomvdhorst]

It looks like it might be a buggy driver for the USB interface bus.
Maybe you could check to see if there’s new firmware available for it ?
Maybe perform een dist-update/dist-upgrade ?

[dvsvejk]

My previous troubleshooting had gone down the route you suggested to a point. I had a feeling the firmware and/or kernel was an issue. Up front, this is the first and only Pi I have owned. I kinda thought that my daily Linux/Debian usage would be sufficient to know all about it. It does help a lot, but there is a lot of Pi specific stuff I didn’t count on and this was one instance.

I remember seeing rpi-eeprom offered up as an update when I did apt update/upgrade, so I checked that. No issue, all sqaure with current in the repository. I then learned of the ‘rpi-eeprom-update’ command. Running that showed me an update available, but I had no idea on how to update (my Pi ignorance in view). I stopped there a few months ago. Today after a bit more looking adding the -d -a options to the command allowed me to update. It did not break my system, but can’t say it helped either as I would have to recreate the issue by knocking the cable again. I’m not in the mood to do that right now, maybe in a few days.

[dvsvejk]

The rpi-eeprom-update did not help (I did not expect it would). It manually updated the bootloader to latest but left the VL805 (USB) firmware untouched as it was up to date. Same behaviour when intentionally disrupting the connection briefly.

My modest search efforts found an array of issues reported that group around Pi4/USB devices/xHCI controller/VL805 firmware. The general consensus was that an update to the VL805 firmware is needed, but no one seemed to know if the vendor would be forthcoming with one. I am not holding my breath for it. In the end I revert to my original “fix” - don’t disrupt the USB cable and all is well. I did modify my physical layout to minimize the possibility of future cable movement.