USB boot fails with multiple devices connected

[rektide]

I've been using USB boot from a flash stick for quite a while, but I wanted to start adding peripherials to make my system useful.  However, after adding peripherials, usb boot stops working.

This happens relatively quickly:
Marvell>> usb start
(Re)start USB...
USB:   scanning bus for devices...
      USB device not responding, giving up (status=20)
5 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices...

And then, ~3 minutes latter:
       scanning bus for storage devices... Device NOT ready
   Request Sense returned 00 00 00
0 Storage Device(s) found

I've tried four hubs, and an army of peripherials.  Of the seven devices sitting next to me, the only time I've gotten OpenRD to boot was with either just the hub, or the hub and an Alfa wifi unit plugged in.  The other six devices all cause the above error.  The behavior has been consistent across both the originally installed u-boot and the u-boot from Alpha6.

Any suggestions, thoughts, advice?
rektide

[restamp]

I'd say you've summed up the current situation pretty well.

[mike]

Hi,

I'm currently using an inexpensive TrendNet TU-400E USB hub (e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-TRENDnet-TU-400E-Hub-4-Ports_W0QQitemZ120436348549QQcategoryZ11179QQcmdZViewItem).  I can boot from my dual partitioned, 8 gig USB memory stick attached to it, but if I try to plug in a keyboard or my Mimo monitor, it fails on the boot, similar to the above (mine actually hangs and does not return from the scan for the storage devices).

I've been plugging in my monitor and keyboard after the plug boots, as a work around.  That had been working.  Today, I'm having a problem with that as well.  When I plug in my keyboard,  a disk read error occurs.  I guess the plug gets confused and loads the keyboard up as /dev/sda2...

Is there a way to configure this to make it work?

Thanks,
Mike

[rektide]

Other posts discussing this topic:

http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=403.0
http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=626.0

Mike, your issue-- adding devices to a running system causing disk read errors-- terrifies the hell out of me.

I would like to use my OpenRD system as a car computer.  As such, adding/removing devices at specific intervals is a non starter for me.

The one thing absent from all the discussion on this topic is any kind of technical insight into the issue-- is this a hardware issue, or just buggy U-boot?  I'd assumed it was a matter of the special brand of u-boot we use being flaky, but if mike is seeing issues in linux related to having multiple devices, I'm suddenly enormously concerned.

[mike]

Hi All,

Here's the output I get to the serial port based console the instant I plug in my Mimo 710 Monitor to the hub...

Code:

root@ubuntu:~# Aborting journal on device sda2.
journal commit I/O error
ext3_abort called.
EXT3-fs error (device sda2): ext3_journal_start_sb: Detected aborted journal
Remounting filesystem read-only
EXT3-fs error (device sda2): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #2 offset 0
EXT3-fs error (device sda2): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #289 offset 0
EXT3-fs error (device sda2): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #289 offset 0
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
EXT3-fs error (device sda2): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #289 offset 0
EXT3-fs error (device sda2): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #308267 offset 0

Here's the df -k output just prior to plugging in the monitor:
root@ubuntu:~# df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2              8032680   6095716   1528916  80% /
tmpfs                   256920         0    256920   0% /lib/init/rw
varrun                  256920        88    256832   1% /var/run
varlock                 256920         0    256920   0% /var/lock
udev                    256920       124    256796   1% /dev
tmpfs                   256920         0    256920   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1                32018      2614     29404   9% /boot

I should say that I had this working for the last few weeks, but now it's complaining.  When I had it working, I had a full KDE desktop running on the plug outputting to the MIMO monitor.  It was really cool looking...   My procedure had been to boot from the USB then plug in the monitor... Unfortunately, not working now...

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Mike

[leadog]

Here is a proposed fix http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=891.0