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MG2R

Member

Registered: 2020-04-26

Posts: 1

How to stop "Maybe the USB cable is bad" message from appearing?

Linux <hostname> 5.14.8-zen1-1-zen #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT Sun, 26 Sep 2021 19:36:16 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm setting up my new Thinkpad T14s (gen2). I'm running an external thunderbolt dock on my desk. To this dock, I have a monitor connected with a USB-C-to-displayport cable. It is plugged into the daisy-chain thunderbolt port on the dock. In this configuration, I get the following spam in `dmesg`:

[ 2988.134814] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 2992.414812] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 2996.694680] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 3000.966763] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 3005.246733] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 3009.526668] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 3013.798746] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 3018.078497] usb usb6-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?

This message keeps appearing over and over, without end. Now, when I take that same cable and pl;ug it directly into the second thunderbolt port on my laptop, I get this instead:

[ 2164.135880] usb usb2-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 2168.207661] usb usb2-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 2168.207699] usb usb2-port2: attempt power cycle
[ 2172.343747] usb usb2-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 2176.416497] usb usb2-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[ 2176.416580] usb usb2-port2: unable to enumerate USB device

After this, the messageing about the bad USB-port stops.

Now, my question: is there a way to stop these messages from appearing when connected to the dock? Everything works and I think the root cause here is that there's no USB-hub connected to the thunderbolt-port (straight coneversion to DisplayPort), which confuses the kernel (?). I don't have a huge issue running it like this, but if I can the spam to stop, that'd be great.