Arch Linux

MartianW

Member

Registered: 2011-10-28

Posts: 2

USB Storage devices not working with kernel in repositories [Solved]

I am experiencing a quite vexing problem with my USB Mass Storage devices, when I plug one in I get the following error in my dmesg:

[ 1811.976758] usb 2-2: new high speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd
[ 1812.101854] scsi7 : usb-storage 2-2:1.0
[ 1813.102576] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Verbatim STORE N GO       2.68 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[ 1813.103818] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 3913728 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 GB/1.86 GiB)
[ 1813.104327] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 1813.104331] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
[ 1813.105567] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[ 1813.105572] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1813.107560] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[ 1813.107565] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1813.108340]  sdb: sdb1
[ 1813.112180] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[ 1813.112186] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1813.112190] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 1813.196828] sdb: detected capacity change from 2003828736 to 0

In the /dev/ folder on the device shows up, not the partitions. When I try to open it with cfdisk I get "FATAL ERROR: Cannot open disk drive". I am pretty sure it iss neither a hardware problem with my laptop or my usb devices, as they both work on my dual-booted Ubuntu. My usb ports in general seem to be functioning, I can still charge a phone through them and use my built in USB webcam.

I am not sure where exactly this issue lies, it started after I upgraded to 3.0.7 (among other updates) from the normal repositories, but still persisted after I downgraded to 3.0.6.

My attempts at Googling have so far revealed mainly hardware errors, which don't seem to fit with the devices working on another OS on the same pc.
Thanks.

Last edited by MartianW (2011-11-09 16:30:15)

ismo

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2010-11-21

Posts: 6

Website

Re: USB Storage devices not working with kernel in repositories [Solved]

Same problem. I try to mount different devices. For each device same result.
The file /var/log/error.log is full of this kind of messages:

Nov  4 21:34:18 moria kernel: [  113.455195] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:34:18 moria kernel: [  113.455200] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov  4 21:35:29 moria kernel: [  184.077728] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:35:29 moria kernel: [  184.077736] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov  4 21:35:29 moria kernel: [  184.080720] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:35:29 moria kernel: [  184.080730] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov  4 21:35:30 moria kernel: [  184.808109] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:35:30 moria kernel: [  184.808116] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov  4 21:41:10 moria kernel: [  525.107109] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:41:10 moria kernel: [  525.107114] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov  4 21:41:10 moria kernel: [  525.110615] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:41:10 moria kernel: [  525.110619] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov  4 21:41:11 moria kernel: [  525.841487] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Nov  4 21:41:11 moria kernel: [  525.841491] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

ismo

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2010-11-21

Posts: 6

Website

Re: USB Storage devices not working with kernel in repositories [Solved]

I found this: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg53947.html
Might be useful...

ismo

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2010-11-21

Posts: 6

Website

Re: USB Storage devices not working with kernel in repositories [Solved]

Good news!
In my case the problem was the presence of package vodafone-mccd from aur. Probably a conflict with file /etc/udev/rules.d/45-vmc-novatel.rules.
After remove the package (I suppose same effect removing only that file) the usb-mass-storage devices work again.

Feydaykyn

Member

Registered: 2011-11-04

Posts: 11

Re: USB Storage devices not working with kernel in repositories [Solved]

I found this: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg53947.html
Might be useful...

The relevant part of the thread is this diagnostic by Alan Stern :
The usbmon log on the nonworking system shows that some user program (not the kernel) is sending bogus commands to the USB stick.  I have no idea what program it is or why it is sending those commands.  One of the commands causes the stick to reset, so the capacity seems to go to 0 and then back to its real value.

I have the same issue. A workaround is to have an usb key plugged in at boot time, others got it by rmmod + modprobe xhci_hcd.

MartianW

Member

Registered: 2011-10-28

Posts: 2

Re: USB Storage devices not working with kernel in repositories [Solved]

Good news!
In my case the problem was the presence of package vodafone-mccd from aur. Probably a conflict with file /etc/udev/rules.d/45-vmc-novatel.rules.
After remove the package (I suppose same effect removing only that file) the usb-mass-storage devices work again.

A-hah. I had exactly the same problem. An important lesson learned about both carelessly installing third-party things and about keeping a log of maintenance such as that.

Thanks a lot everyone who replied.