I have a kernel module or two that are involved in communicating with my Sony Clie over USB - usb-uhci, usbserial and visor.

Sometimes a sync completes without problems, but the dekstop is left as if it hasn't quite completed (I'm using jpilot to sync by the way...)

I am now no longer able to sync unless I reboot. If I try to unload the offending modules then I am told they are busy, or the console simply hangs...

I know the sync is complete and I hate having to reboot - this isn't windows after all.

Is there a way to force these modules to unload without any risk to my hardware/system?

removes modules

not if the modules thinks it's busy it doesn't :wink:

I've already tried rmmod several times. I will, however, try modprobe -r and see if that makes any difference - although I suspect not.

It won't unload till you kill the process using it which I suspect is what you really want to do. If you know the device file your Sony Clie uses, you can find out what processes it's using with:

# fuser -vm <path to device file>

And I believe that this will kill all processes it uses:

# fuser -km <path to device file>

Thanks - next time it happens, I'll try that. It may well be the solution

running simply lists lots of processes - I'm sure they can't all be using the device...

trying to kill them causes a complete system hang!