Help! - USB Flash drives support sucks!

[chocobanana]

Ok everybody

 

Now here's an issue that really makes someone angry, desperate, frustated and deceived with Mandrake.

 

Why can't every usb flash drive be detected and automatically mounted seamlessly in mandrake 10 and 10.1 OEs?

 

I already searched the forums, posted one topic and never got a definitive solution!

 

Here's my post in case you feel curious:

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=18964&hl=

 

Ok so I still have a USB drive I can't use properly. One thing though: Mandrake only recognizes the device if it properly partioned (in fat16) but not formatted. And if it is formatted, after I plug the drive and iniciate the system shutdown, it freezes when is about to stop alsa.

 

How can I make it work as it should?

 

Please help and I'm almost sure I'm not the only one problems with this issue

 

Thanks in advance

Edited December 17, 2004 by chocobanana

[Yankee]

I don't know if this will help you but my USB camera & jumpdrive would not mount then they did (they just did under root). I posted this in alt.os.linux.mandrake.

 

Hello,

 

I have been working on this problem and when logged in as root I have no

trouble which leads me to believe it is a file permission problem. When

logged in as a regular user Konqeror will not start after inserting a USB

device. I am using a Lexar jumpdrive and a fuji 2400 camera. The home icon

on the desktop does not open either.

 

WORK AROUND: I changed the home icon to run at root, entered the password

and told it to save the password. It opens, not everytime, but 4 out of 5

maybe.

 

I will keep looking but it sure looks like file permissions to me. Some

of you guys with a little more experience might be able to fix this.

 

Jim Wrote" Can you rephrase that a bit? I've got a pendrive that works fine with

10.0 but rarely gets recognized with 10.1. Kindly outline for a

relative newbie the workaround."

 

Sorry about that. On the desktop you have a home icon. Right click it and

do a properties on it. Then on one of the tabs there is an advanced button.

Select run as (meaning run as a different user). I put root in there. Now

when you double click the home folder it will ask for the root password.

Enter it and select save password. Then you can use that to open a file

browser and view the files and the web for help. It is a bummer when you

can't browse anything for help. Everyone says install all the updates.

Yea, that might fix it but it seems like it is pretty simple once you find

it. Works fine logged in as root.

 

I am still working on this.

[aRTee]

First: people on that other thread were helping you, you never got round to answering. If you're waiting for a definitive solution, it will never come unless you go out and find it.

 

Second: I know it sounds strange, but Dragonmages comments are correct - if you format the drive under linux, things will likely work fine after that.

I don't know either why, but I have seen this happen too, and after doing fdisk on the device /dev/sda, basically creating one big fat partition, things were fine, including automounting.

 

 

Lastly: you're right to be annoyed - these simple things should just work. On the other hand, I don't have any problematic devices - other than a hd with so many partitions that the automounter program just refuses, so I HAVE to do it by hand - so I can't file any bugreports...

If Linux is to get better it can only do so if those having issues report them back; your statement that surely many others also have this problem may well be correct, but if nobody speaks out, this will _never_ get fixed.

Naturally, it may be that there are good reasons why things don't work with badly formatted usb sticks, the Linux kernel developers have stated time and again they don't want to implement workarounds for crappy hardware.

 

 

Have you 'redone' your usb media with fdisk (from command line, as root, use fdisk to delete and then create the one single partition, then accept changes (w?) and use mkfs.vfat to format it)?

If you then unplug and plug it, what shows up in /var/log/messages (read as root:

tail -f /var/log/messages

then plug the device)?

What devices do you get? What's the output of

ls -l /dev/sd*

before and after plugging the stick?

 

 

I must say I have one device, a digital camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ10) that I have trouble with to get to work with usb - but I have a usb-OTG disk which also cannot read from the camera properly - so the cam doesn't respect the usb protocol properly...

[chocobanana]

Thanks Yankee and aRTee for your help!

 

Yankee I didn't understand your post very well, but thanks anyway

 

aRTee, I admit I wasn't too cooperative, but you know, using windows for too long makes you loose your patience and makes you a bit dumb using operating systems.

Anyway, I tryed to repartion and format with qtparted in knoppix before posting this and it generated the problems described in my first post.

 

However, using fdisk surprisingly produced different results. I deleted the partitions in fdisk and made a new primary one which I converted to fat16 (I assumed it should be like this). At this point an icon of the drive was already available in the desktop but inaccessible. Then I formatted it in vfat and the drive started working right way. It was automatically and correctly mounted in /mnt/removable and I copyed files to it without problems. Then I umounted it right clicking in the icon and when I tryed to plug it again it wouldn't do nothing as before.

 

Here's the output of the log right after formatting it:

 

Dec 18 12:28:31 localhost kernel: mtrr: 0xe8000000,0x4000000 overlaps existing 0xe8000000,0x100000

Dec 18 12:28:31 localhost kernel: agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

Dec 18 12:28:31 localhost kernel: agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 1x mode

Dec 18 12:28:31 localhost kernel: agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 1x mode

Dec 18 12:28:31 localhost kernel: [drm] Loading R200 Microcode

Dec 18 12:28:41 localhost kde3(pam_unix)[7766]: session opened for user studio by (uid=0)

Dec 18 12:28:41 localhost net_applet[7860]: ### Program is starting ###

Dec 18 12:28:48 localhost kernel: cdrom: This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize!

Dec 18 12:28:48 localhost kernel: cdrom: This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize!

Dec 18 12:29:08 localhost su(pam_unix)[8018]: session opened for user root by (uid=501)

Dec 18 12:29:26 localhost kernel: usb 4-2: new high speed USB device using address 7

Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Vendor: Generic Model: USB Flash Disk Rev: 2.00

Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02

Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:

Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Current : sense key Unit Attention

Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Additional sense: Not ready to ready change, medium may have changed

Dec 18 12:29:37 localhost scsi.agent[8114]: Attribute /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:01.2/usb4/4-2/4-2:1.0/host4/4:0:0:0/type does not exist (Timeout)

 

What do you think?

 

Thanks again for your help

[Yankee]

My whole point is if you log in as root the flash drive works fine. When I log in as a normal user is when I get problems. In order to study it I set the file browser to run as root so it will open.

I would think since it works as root that it is a file access permission of some sort. Everyone says install the updates to fix it. But I would like to use this from a straight install for other people and this is the only problem, or biggest one it has. A simple fix other than a 514 MB update would be nice.

[aRTee]

Yankee, the problem of chocobanana should not be confused with the one you mention. Please open your own topic for your issue.

 

Upon examination of the above /var/log/messages I can conclude that on chocobanana's system even root won't be able to use the device, since it says:

 

Dec 18 12:29:08 localhost su(pam_unix)[8018]: session opened for user root by (uid=501)
Dec 18 12:29:26 localhost kernel: usb 4-2: new high speed USB device using address 7
Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Vendor: Generic Model: USB Flash Disk Rev: 2.00
Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:
Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Current : sense key Unit Attention
Dec 18 12:29:27 localhost kernel: Additional sense: Not ready to ready change, medium may have changed
Dec 18 12:29:37 localhost scsi.agent[8114]: Attribute /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:01.2/usb4/4-2/4-2:1.0/host4/4:0:0:0/type does not exist (Timeout)

 

The nice thing is that you can actually tell how many seconds something takes, etc.

So from the {sda: Unit Not Ready, sense} I gather that there is some issue with the communication between the device and the usbport/controller.

I don't know what things look like when the flash key is not properly formatted, so I am shooting in the dark here... anyone elses guess is as good as mine.

Have you tried other usb ports (on a different controller)?

Do you get the device node: /dev/sda and /dev/sda1 ?

Have you booted with the options: noapic nolapic?

(at lilo bootprompt, hit the escape key and type:

linux noapic nolapic

to boot with those options - assuming your regular linux is called 'linux' in the bootmenu)

 

Anyone else with advice or hints/tips?

[chocobanana]

Already tryed with other usb ports and I always get the same. Also, the other post I mencioned before, was related to another machine, so I'm having this issue with a second machine.

 

How about the fact that it only functions properly after the format and when I plug it again it doesn't works? Mentioning this also makes me remember that hardrake won't initiate with the disk pluged in. And why do other flash drives work properly?

 

yes I think I got the node /dev/sda1, because I used mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 and it worked fine.

 

Just for curiosity, what is apic and what does it has to do with this issue?

 

Thanks for the help so far

Edited December 18, 2004 by chocobanana

[aRTee]

Ok, that makes things a bit clearer.

 

I'm too tired to think,... so just one comment for now: I have no clue what apic has to do with it, but 2 days ago I was using a usb2 card reader with the sdcard of my camera, and on the usb ports in front of the machine it wouldn't work, whereas before I used the rear usb ports and they were fine.

Then to my surprise /var/log/message had a kernel message for me that said: "try using different boot options for apic".

 

So I rebooted with

linux noapic nolapic

and the front usb ports started working.

Why? Ask Linus. All I know is the kernel told me so (yeah, it didn't tell you, I know..).

Nightynight, maybe I'll have more ideas after a good nights sleep...

 

And if anyone else has some ideas, go ahead!