[SOLVED] CC Witness no longer mounts on 14.2 64 (USB / XFCE)

magicm · 06-14-2017, 10:37 AM

Hey guys & gals - Thanks in advance for any help. This is a weird one to me and I have no idea where to go with it.

First, this used to work under 14.1 (I recently upgraded) - it seems to be unique to this particular hardware)

The hardware is a CC Witness (C. Crane Co). Basically, it is an MP3 player/recorder with a slot for an SD Card, and it also has an AM/FM Radio). I use it to hold workout music for the gym, and podcasts on the SD Card). I keep the contents of both backed up on my home directory in slack, and have scripts to manage the contents).

Now, previously when I wanted to update the contents of the CC Witness, I'd plug it in thru a USB cable and it would "automount" to my XFCE desktop as /run/media/<user>/<label> (2 mounts: one for the "internal" directory, and one for the SD card). For the record that is still the behavior when I plug in any other USB device that I've tried (pendrives and such).

So, recently a friend emailed me a reference to a podcast, which I was going to transfer to the CC Witness, and listen to at the gym. I plugged in the CC Witness and apparently nothing (although the CC Witness reported that it was connected).

So, what research have I done before coming here.

1. while the CC Witness was plugged in, I fired up GParted, which reported 2 new devices ( /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc ), each with one partition.

2. I opened up a root console, and tried the following:

Code:

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 1.9 GiB, 2008022528 bytes, 3921919 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *     1020 3921918 3920899  1.9G  6 FAT16

Disk /dev/sdc: 7.4 GiB, 7969177600 bytes, 15564800 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device     Boot Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *      560 15564799 15564240  7.4G  b W95 FAT32

root@igloo:~# lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0 931.5G  0 part /
└─sda2   8:2    0     8M  0 part 
sdb      8:16   1   1.9G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   1   1.9G  0 part 
sdc      8:32   1   7.4G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:33   1   7.4G  0 part 

from /var/log/messages

Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.769455] usb 4-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using ehci-pci
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.856371] usb 4-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0dab, idProduct=4301
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.856382] usb 4-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.856390] usb 4-1.2: Product: YMDC-507X UMS DEVICE 
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.856395] usb 4-1.2: Manufacturer: YOUNTEL CO.LTD.
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.856400] usb 4-1.2: SerialNumber: 000100F9C1BFF1C8
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.857259] usb-storage 4-1.2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo kernel: [ 3678.858219] scsi host11: usb-storage 4-1.2:1.0
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo mtp-probe: checking bus 4, device 7: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb4/4-1/4-1.2" 
Jun 13 10:59:04 igloo mtp-probe: bus: 4, device: 7 was not an MTP device 
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.577235] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access     CCRANE   CCWitness        1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.579433] scsi 11:0:0:1: Direct-Access     CCRANE   CCWitness        1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.582150] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdb] 3921919 512-byte logical blocks: (2.01 GB/1.87 GiB)
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.582764] sd 11:0:0:1: [sdc] 15564800 512-byte logical blocks: (7.97 GB/7.42 GiB)
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.584264] sd 11:0:0:1: [sdc] Write Protect is off
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.585928] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jun 13 10:59:05 igloo kernel: [ 3680.595147]  sdc: sdc1
Jun 13 10:59:06 igloo kernel: [ 3680.673042]  sdb: sdb1

So, then I thought I'd try to manually mount the "new" devices

Code:

mount -t auto -o umask=000 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/tmp

And then, Thunar can find it (though it takes a _long_ time), but none of my slackware mp3 players can use the files - at that point /var/log/messages is reporting

Code:

Jun 14 10:12:02 igloo kernel: [ 7915.254177] usb 4-1.2: reset high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Jun 14 10:12:02 igloo kernel: [ 7915.424200] usb 4-1.2: reset high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Jun 14 10:12:02 igloo kernel: [ 7915.594194] usb 4-1.2: reset high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Jun 14 10:12:02 igloo kernel: [ 7915.765166] usb 4-1.2: reset high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Jun 14 10:12:03 igloo kernel: [ 7915.936222] usb 4-1.2: reset high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Jun 14 10:12:03 igloo kernel: [ 7916.106201] usb 4-1.2: reset high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Jun 14 10:12:03 igloo kernel: [ 7916.192255] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x07 driverbyte=0x00
Jun 14 10:12:03 igloo kernel: [ 7916.192268] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x28 28 00 00 00 07 a2 00 00 01 00

When I attempt similar to get to the SD card

Code:

root@igloo:~# mount -t auto -o umask=000 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/floppy
mount: /dev/sdc1: can't read superblock

For the record, I'm running generic-4.4.38 kernel with an initrd that loads the following modules:

Code:

modprobe -v xhci-hcd
modprobe -v xhci-pci
modprobe -v ehci-hcd
modprobe -v ohci-hcd
modprobe -v ohci-pci
modprobe -v ehci-pci
modprobe -v uhci-hcd
modprobe -v hid
modprobe -v usbhid
modprobe -v i2c-core
modprobe -v i2c-hid
modprobe -v hid-generic
modprobe -v hid-cherry
modprobe -v hid-logitech
modprobe -v hid-logitech-dj
modprobe -v hid-logitech-hidpp
modprobe -v hid-lenovo
modprobe -v hid-microsoft
modprobe -v hid-multitouch
modprobe -v jbd2
modprobe -v mbcache
modprobe -v ext4

So, ideas about what I should try next to research and correct this?
Again, thanks in advance

bassmadrigal · 06-14-2017, 11:39 AM

First guess is that it is related to the USB. Maybe just simply replacing the cable, but it could also be the USB port or the controller inside the device. Does the SD card mount normally if you pull it out of the device and use a different SD card reader?

magicm · 06-14-2017, 01:13 PM

Thank you - partial solution.

I hadn't even thought of the cable. And I actually don't have another; it's USB on one end, but something unique on the CC Witness side. (although I just got on C.Crane's website and ordered a couple replacement cables - it's cheap if that's the issue - and it easily could be, the current cable is indeed over 10 years old).

It has also been years since I removed the SD Card, but I did, and popped it into the SD slot in my Thinkpad, and it showed up as /run/media/<usr>/<label> as before. I mounted it, transferred the new podcast, and plugged it back into the CC Witness, which proceeded to find and use it just fine.

Hopefully when the new cables arrive, I'll be able to report a complete success; currently the workout music on the CC Witness (non-SD) is usable on the device, but I can't update that - Oh, well for now.

Thanks again - immediate difficulty has a workaround.

magicm · 06-17-2017, 09:08 AM

Well, the new USB cable showed up. But it behaves the same as before. <<sigh>>. Since then I attempted to plug the CC Witness into a Win7 instance. It found 2 USB Storage Devices, but claimed they were unusable and would need to be formatted. Didn't do that, of course. It would be doubly pointless, as the backup copies of the contents are stored on an ext4 file system.

So, I'm back to asking if anyone has any ideas on where to go from here. I had one thought; that I use GParted to generate a UUID for the "internal" (sdb1 in previous post, it currently doesn't report one) and create an fstab entry for it (my current fstab has entries like that I use to specify backup drives that I don't always mount). I'm a little leery of doing this, in case it would render the CC Witness unusable. It plays its current set just fine. But it's an idea.

bassmadrigal · 06-17-2017, 10:50 AM

A UUID for the partition will already exist (or at least some variant of a UUID). You can view them using ls -la /dev/disk/by-uuid/ or lsblk -o +UUID, but those entries are just pointers to the /dev/sdb1 (or whatever your device is) and likely wouldn't make any difference in mounting the device.

I hate to say it, but it sounds like the USB controller on the device is going out.

magicm · 06-17-2017, 02:52 PM

Quote:

from bassmadrigal
I hate to say it, but it sounds like the USB controller on the device is going out.

Well, I guess nothing lasts forever. All in all this device has served me well for a long time. Although, it isn't cheap, I may have to replace it with a new one (they still sell them, but now as a "CC Witness Plus" - which _does_ use a "normal" USB to Mini-USB jack cable , and includes the caveat : "Please note that neither the CC Witness Plus accessory kit or CC Witness Plus firmware are compatible with the original CC Witness.")

I'll probably hold off on the replacement for a while yet, tho.

magicm · 06-28-2017, 10:59 AM

Well, I broke down and purchased a new 'CC Witness Plus' - which arrived the other day. The original (desired) behavior is back. When plugged in the new device mounts as /run/media/<user>/<label>. When I insert my SD-Card with the podcasts into its SD Slot, and re-attach the USB cable, both devices (internal and SD-Card) show up on my XFCE Desktop.

I loaded the new device with my archived workout music - which it plays just fine.

So, I'm marking this issue solved. Trying to decide what to do with the partially broken old device, but that's not an issue for this forum.

Thx for your help, @bassmadrigal