On Sat, 2 Dec 2006, David Relson wrote: > On Sat, 2 Dec 2006 17:08:02 -0500 (EST) > Alan Stern wrote: > > ...[snip]... > > > Remind me of the context again; it has slipped my mind. You were > > getting random disconnects that sometimes (or always?) ended up > > hanging the USB subsystem? > > Good question. I'm using program BackupPC and a USB hard drive > connected to my workstation to backup my workstation and and a second > machine. The workstation is running Gentoo with (now) kernel 2.6.19, > has a HD with 55 Gb of files in 2,000,000 (or so files). The second > machine has 8GB in 130,000 files. > > The backup process does a lot of I/O and will, eventually, hang the USB > subsystem. Sometimes it happens within an hour or two of starting the > backup. More often it happens after 10 or 12 hours. Running a 2.6.18 > kernel, a 40 hr full backup was successful, but a later 3 hrs > incremental backup ran into trouble. > > As you've gathered, the problem occurs randomly. Over time (days) it > can be expected to occur again.
In fact you've got a combination of two problems, which may or may not be related. First is the random disconnects; they would mess up your backups in any case. Second is the hang that occurs during the disconnect processing. The hang is definitely a hardware bug in the VIA EHCI controller. The random disconnect could be as well; I vaguely recall hearing of things like it from other people. If you just want the problems to go away, the easiest solution is to buy an add-on PCI USB controller card (not VIA!) and use it instead of the computer's built-in controller. Alan Stern ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
